“Well.” She sighed. “I suppose you were lucky that your verse was chosen in the Gospel of Mark, instead of, for instance, the Book of Zachariah. You don’t much look like a Zachariah. Or a Habakkuk.”
He smiled, which had been her purpose in the first place. “Your father must have been quite devout,” Jessica continued. Even her own father, a straitlaced vicar, would never have considered such a path. And then she looked up into his face, remembering something he’d said earlier…
“My mother,” Mark said softly. “My mother actually had the naming of us. My father wasn’t around when any of us were born. And yes, she was very religious. She…” Mark trailed off. “She didn’t have much to believe in. What she did have, she believed with her whole heart.”
Jessica chewed this over slowly. “You said you wanted peace and balance, Sir Mark. Might that be why?”
Sir Mark looked at her for a good long while. His lips pressed together. His eyes met hers, and she suddenly was struck by the realization that while she knew his tailor and his record in school, she knew very little about him. For a man who had his every move trumpeted in the papers, there was a great deal more to him than anyone had ever reported. She’d not known that “Mark” was not his given name.
He smiled so often, spoke so easily. She’d thought him straightforward. Now, a shiver went through her—not fear, but an almost resonant sense of recognition. This was a man with secrets.
She knew what those felt like.
“There are some things,” he said, “that I don’t want in any of the papers. Ever. I’ve had my life picked over often enough. Some risks I just can’t take. It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
He shouldn’t trust her. She was planning to seduce him and to proclaim that fact publicly. She held her breath, feeling appalled with herself.
“Some things,” he said slowly, “I should like to keep private.”
When she’d volunteered herself for Weston’s plan, she’d thought she was just going to ruin his reputation. He’d had his name picked over in the papers so often, she’d imagined it would be just another story to him. That was before she’d known him. Sir Mark was going to utterly hate her if she succeeded. She was going to hate herself.
“Then don’t tell me,” she said, with more airy unconcern than she would have believed possible. “We’re at my house anyway, and I see Marie in the window. So we’d not have any privacy to speak of.”
He gave her one sharp nod.
“I’ll see you…next week, is it, then? At Tolliver’s shooting competition.”
He let out a breath. “Hope that Mr. Parret is gone by the time someone hands me a rifle.” She thought he was joking. As she turned to go into her house, he caught her hand in his. “Mrs. Farleigh. Thank you.”
His fingers twined with hers briefly. And then she pulled her hand away, thinking of all the things he wanted to keep private. “Don’t,” she said quietly. “Don’t thank me.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE SUN HAD BARELY burnt away the morning mist when Mark arrived at the green beyond the river, where the shooting competition would start. James Tolliver—whose father was hosting the activity—greeted him enthusiastically as he walked up.
“Sir Mark!” He sounded genuinely excited, as happy as a puppy whose master had returned home. “You came! I set up targets two and four—when you see them, tell me if I’ve done a good job.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
“And I was the one to come up with the rules for the competition. It’s two rounds—shooting to be done in pairs. The first round will determine relative ranking, and then, everyone will be paired off based on ability.”
Mark wasn’t quite sure how that would work, but he’d little experience with such competitions. All he hoped to do was pull the trigger when they said shoot.
“That seems like a sound structure. You must have put quite a bit of thought into it.”
“Well.” Tolliver preened a bit. “Will you partner me, first round?”
Unbidden, Mark glanced across the lawn toward the knot of other contestants. He caught a glimpse of Mrs. Farleigh—a flash of a long gown of buttercup yellow with smart white cuffs.
“And you needn’t worry about her,” Tolliver continued innocently. “Dinah—Miss Lewis, I mean—has agreed to partner her. I did take what you said to heart.”
“Huh.” Perhaps the boy might actually have done so.
“And besides,” the young man continued, “Dinah wanted to talk with her. She wanted to know how she did her hair. Can you believe it?”
Mark took in Mrs. Farleigh again. Today her bonnet matched her gown—gold silk with white ribbons. Underneath it, her hair coiled in braids that glistened and intertwined, as impossible to unravel as a blacksmith’s puzzle. “I don’t blame Miss Lewis,” Mark said absently.
“Um.” Tolliver cleared his throat, and his tone turned sly. “Maybe we should go talk to them. See if Miss Lewis needs anything.”
Oh, the unsubtlety of a randy teenager. Mark glanced at Tolliver, and that false nonchalance evaporated in pink cheeks.
“That is to say—truly—I can resist—not that I am at all tempted! An upstanding member of the MCB—”
“What has the MCB to do with talking to a lady?” Mark asked. “You’re allowed to flirt. When have I ever said otherwise?”
“But the membership card!”
“Membership card?”
Tolliver fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a rectangle not much larger than a calling card. The edges were fraying and soft, as if it had been carried around for a great while.
“There. Item number three. ‘I solemnly agree that I will not engage in flirtatious or other lascivious conduct, as such leads to Peril.’”
“Give that here.”
Tolliver handed it over. Mark fished in his own pockets and found a stub of pencil. With a flourish, he drew a line through number three and then added in tiny letters: Flirtation privileges restored, 21-6-1841. M947T.
“There,” he said handing the card back. “Just in time, too. The ladies are coming over.”
Tolliver stared at the card. “How is it that the MCB is…is so not in accord with your own beliefs?”
Because I was avoiding the entire organization. You were all embarrassing. But…he was be ginning to understand that he’d let this happen through his inattention.
“Tolliver,” Mark said, “it’s because I made a mistake. A very bad one, and one that you’ve helped me realize.”
“You? A mistake?”
“I should have spoken with the MCB before this moment. Perhaps…” He sighed, looked at the confused look clouding the boy’s eyes. “Perhaps you’ll let me start here.”
“You want to give a speech to the MCB? Oh, brilliant! What of Tuesday next?”
Mrs. Farleigh and Miss Lewis were approaching. They’d been given rifles. Miss Lewis held hers delicately, between thumb and forefinger, as if she planned to drop it at any moment.
“Best get it out of the way. Tuesday it is. Now go say hello to your sweetheart.”
Tolliver blushed furiously. “She’s not my—oh. You’re having me on.”
And then the women joined them, and Tolliver began talking—explaining the system of the competition once again, this time in an even more disjointed fashion. After he’d managed to confuse everyone, he complicated matters by asking Miss Lewis about, of all things, her father’s intended sermon.
Flirtation privileges, Mark decided, were not about to lead Tolliver into Peril. They were more likely to take him toward Embarrassment.
Mrs. Farleigh glanced at the two and then over at Mark. They shared a half smile, poorly suppressed.
Mark reached forward and took the card from Tolliver’s hand. “I’m revoking these,” he said to Tolliver, “until such time as you learn to use them properly.”
“What?” asked Miss Lewis.
“Nothing,” Toll
iver said urgently, waving at Mark. “It’s nothing.”
But Mrs. Farleigh glanced at the card over his shoulder and burst into laughter.
It wasn’t fair. He’d never seen her laugh before. When she did, her whole face lit. She held nothing back. Mark felt utterly, stupidly bereft of intelligence. He’d have babbled about sermons to her in that moment, if he could have thought of a word to say.
“Ignore him, Mr. Tolliver,” Mrs. Farleigh plucked the card from Mark’s hand and slid it into Tolliver’s pocket. “You’re doing quite well, considering. And you—” she pointed at Mark, and he felt his breath come to a rumbling halt inside his lungs “—I’ve a question to put to you.”
She turned and walked away. When they were a few steps distant, she shook her head. “Poor boy. He can’t impress both you and Miss Lewis at the same time. You are his hero, you know. Show some compassion.”
“You’re quite right. I shouldn’t have teased.”
“No.” She sighed, and then looked up at him. “You signed your initials to that card, didn’t you?”
“Yes?”
“Mark 9:47? Isn’t that rather a gruesome name to attach to a young child?”
Mark felt his smile fade. “My brothers are named Ash and Smite. My mother wasn’t concerned with choosing happy names for her children.” He paused. “You know what verse that is offhand? You keep trying to tell me that you’re wicked.”
“I am.”
“You’re the worst fallen woman I’ve ever met.”
“My father was a vicar,” she returned with asperity. “I can’t help it if some of my early childhood lingered, despite my best intentions. And really—you were named after the verse that suggests that in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, you have to—”
“I know. You don’t need to tell me,” he said with a growl. “Really. Next time, I’m just signing Sir Mark, do you hear? Forget it.”
There was a long, awkward pause. From this distance, Mark could hear Tolliver burbling on to Miss Lewis. By the way she was looking up at him, Tolliver was doing better than Mark was. He could even hear the rector, twenty yards away, talking about the same catechism that Miss Lewis had recounted to Tolliver.
A new subject of conversation was definitely warranted.
“Are you a good shot?” It was a fumble, but as soon as he said it, he knew it would distract her. There was something about the way she held her rifle. She didn’t seem to be conscious that she was holding it at all, and yet it seemed as if she might close the breach and raise the weapon to her shoulder at any moment. That bespoke a facility with firearms, one that had been trained so consistently that it was now beyond thought.
But Mrs. Farleigh simply shrugged, still looking at him. “I’ve not spent much time shooting rook rifles,” she said absently. “You?”
Ah. So these were rook rifles. They all looked basically the same to Mark—long barrels, wood stock.
“Indifferent,” Mark confessed. “When I was young, we had no shooting range. And over the last years, I’ve spent most of my time with my eldest brother in London, which means I’ve had little chance to shoot in the country. I hope only to avoid coming in dead last.”
She let out a little gasp. “Wha-at?” She drew the word out, making a mockery of her surprise. “The indomitable Sir Mark has an imperfection? Oh, dear. And here I left my hartshorn and vinegar at home.”
It had been a long while since anyone aside from his brothers had teased him. It felt good now—better than he dared admit—to look into her dark eyes, glowing with humor.
He schooled his own expression to sobriety. “Well, it’s only the one flaw,” he said. “And if I speak very loudly, surely nobody will notice.” His eyes darted across the lawn to the rector, who stood across the lawn, still pontificating.
Mrs. Farleigh coughed on a sputter of laughter. Yes, it had been a very long time since anyone had dared to tease him—let alone understood when he teased back. His thoughts from the past days—his lingering anger, his unresolved thoughts about the commission—seemed to weigh less. “You, on the other hand,” he said, “are an excellent shot.”
“You can’t know that.” But her cheeks took on a faint flush that had nothing to do with the sun overhead.
“What think you of the course?” He gestured toward the first target—a simple shot across twenty yards of green.
Beyond it, the track cut through low oaks. Barely visible through the foliage, the second target peeked out. The stations increased in difficulty. The fifth target, invisible now, was hidden like a partridge in the bracken along the Doulting Water.
Jessica narrowed her eyes briefly—perhaps sizing up the course—before turning to him. There was a stubborn set to her chin. “Interesting,” was all she said.
“Can you win this thing, do you think?”
She had not yet admitted to any aptitude for shooting, but the fierce intake of breath beside him was all the answer he needed.
“Ah,” he said aloud, drawling the syllable out. “The imperfect Mrs. Farleigh has a talent.”
She didn’t breathe, simply looked at the first target in front of them. She seemed taut and wary, like a deer deciding whether to stay and snatch a few more mouthfuls of grass, or bound away into the underbrush. Her lips curved, not in pleasure, but in want instead. He had no idea what he would do if she ever looked at him like that.
But he was saved from finding out when the rector recalled himself from his lecture. He motioned to the elder Mr. Tolliver, and the man called out for everyone to take their places. Reluctantly, Mark touched his hat and made to leave.
But she held up one finger.
“I could win this thing,” she said. Her voice had a hint of a rasp to it. “But I shall do you one better.”
He couldn’t imagine what might be better than winning, but he had no opportunity to question her. Instead he let Tolliver guide him away. The young fellow was a better shot than Mark. Hardly surprising, but Tolliver flushed every time he out-shot his…his hero. Mark waved away the apologies, annoyed.
In the first round, he scarcely had a chance to speak with Mrs. Farleigh. She walked arm in arm with Dinah Lewis. The two of them strolled after everyone else, whispering to one another. If she’d been shooting brilliantly, he ought to have heard the congratulations.
And so Mark didn’t realize what she’d done until the first round was finished, and the evidence of his prowess—or lack thereof—was placed before him. Between pairs, servants had covered the targets with fresh sheets of paper, the more accurately to score and to resolve disputes. On the first target, Mark’s shot had gone wide, to the upper left, where it had lodged in the second ring from the center. She’d hit the target in the upper right, also in the second ring. Had he placed a looking glass down the meridian of the paper, her shot would have been the reflection of his. Target after target, she’d mirrored his shots. Precisely.
Nobody else seemed to notice this. And why would they? Nobody shot to miss.
Her performance meant that they were paired together for the second round—and due to their equally poor scores, they were the last pair to go through the course.
While they were waiting for the crowd to clear around the first target, he found her once more.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” She was standing to the side of the lawn, watching the men take aim. Despite the exertions of the past hour, her dark hair had not slipped from the complicated knots and braids she’d made of it.
“Why, Sir Mark. My aim is indifferent—as I am sure you noticed.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him—a self-satisfied little feminine gesture. Even knowing that she teased him, he could not help but feel a swell of desire. He wanted that flutter to be real. He wanted to have at least that much power over her—to know that he could fluster her, even a little bit.
“Your aim was unerring,” he said. “It was your target that was indifferent. Now, are you going to answer my question, or
is this an attempt to maintain an air of mystery?”
She let out a sigh. “I’ve spent a good amount of time in hunting boxes around men. When they go off on their own to shoot, one has to find some way to amuse one’s self.”
“Your husband took you hunting?”
She shrugged once again. “It amused him to have female companionship. And I discovered that I had a…a natural affinity for shooting. Once I discovered that, I had to learn greater proficiency, for the sake of self-preservation.”
“Self-preservation? Truly?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “What, was your life threatened by pigeons?”