Drew snorted, but he knelt and retrieved the bow and arrow as the footmen placed various bits and bobs on the table in the field. “I’ll show you.”
“Would you?” Amelia asked, satisfied she’d kept the victory from her voice.
“Oooh.” Miss Angleton hummed. “The ladies should take notes from you.”
Drew glared at the companion. “Mrs. Dart is an excellent notetaker. Any man or woman would be lucky to have instruction from her on the topic.”
Miss Angleton slapped a hand over her mouth. What was she covering up? A laugh? A string of words that once put together would not prove salubrious at all for Amelia? Didn’t matter as long as that hand stayed where it was. She closed her eyes briefly then dropped her palm and faced Drew with a pleasant grin. “I was going to instruct Mrs. Dart on the art of archery. But go ahead, my lord. You have the honor. It will allow me to warmup my more-than-rusted skills first.” She held out a hand to a footman, who placed a bow and an arrow in her palm, and after a few short moments, when Miss Angleton’s body was all action, precision, and stillness in equal measure, her arrow whizzed through the air andthunkedinto an apple on the tabletop several paces away. Miss Angleton grinned. “Not that rusty after all.”
“Perhaps you should defer to her, my lord,” Amelia said. “You surely cannot prove so talented.”
“Talent or no, I’ll teach you.”
“Why?”
“Because you need teaching.”
“And that’s all?” A bit of prying, but subtlety was lost on an oblivious man.
“Stand there.” He took her by the shoulders and situated her at the center of the table, just before the largest object on it—a ceramic urn.
“Should that be out here?” she asked no one in particular.
“Mrs. Scott dislikes dusting it,” a footman to her left said.
“Ah. Butshedoesn’t dust it, surely. A maid?—”
“Do be still, Amelia.” Drew placed his hand at the middle of her back, and she lost all ability to breathe, all care for urns large or small and who had the task of dusting them. “Where’s your glove?”
“Glove?”
He looked to the footmen. “The archery gloves?”
They shrugged.
Miss Angleton rummaged through the trunk that had held the equipment. “None here.” She scowled at her fingers. “We’ll have to find a bit of leather.”
“Until then, here.” Drew stripped a glove off and tossed it at Miss Angleton, who ripped it from the air with a grin.
“Cotton.” She grimaced. “But good quality. We’ll ruin them, you know.”
“Better them,” Drew grumbled, “than your hands.” He turned to Amelia and began to strip off his other glove, revealing first the thick pad of his hand, then the large breadth of his palm, and finally his fingers. Long and strong, they took no time to seek her out, to wrap her hands up and fit that black glove onto her. “There. Protected somewhat now.”
But he’d not released her hand. He stood looking down at it, turning it over and over.
“Drew,” she queried, her voice sounding like a breath.
“As soon as it begins to fray, you’re done, Amelia Dart. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Another breathy single syllable.
“Good.” He snapped out of his trance and turned her sharply to face the table. “Feet perpendicular to the target.” When she complied, he placed the bow in one of her hands but kept the arrow. “I put the glove on your right hand. I assume that’s the one you wish to use to draw back. Do you disagree?”
She shook her head. He stood so close, touched her informally on her shoulder, her wrist, her neck. She’d do anything he bid her as long as he remained near, touching, his breath teasing her ear as he gave instructions.
“Excellent. You’ll pull the string back with the gloved hand, Amelia. Give it a try.”
“Like this?” Holding the bow out before her, she pulled the string back, her arm wavering.
