The Corinthians Series: Rules of Masquerade

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

“Steady hands.” Emerson muttered and Charlotte drew calming breaths in effort to stop her hands from trembling. She squinted to make out the ten meter target that seemed terribly far. It was an impossible target to hit, at least by her, but Emerson had been a patient and willing teacher so far. If only her previous instructor had been so tolerant, she would have at least managed to inflict fewer injuries than she had done during her course of her archery lessons. 

But then again her prude old trainer had not cared to stand behind her while she aimed or had placed his hand on top of hers to steady her jittery nerves. Emerson was so close to her, she could even smell his clean masculine musk. His firm and steady hand arranged her arms into a correct position while he instructed Charlotte to focus her eyes on the target. Her spectacles dangled uselessly around her neck and rested against her chest.

“Okay, now let go.” He whispered and Charlotte did as told. The arrow sailed through the air and embedded itself onto the outermost ring of the target. Charlotte’s jaw dropped and she immediately dropped the brow onto the ground in shock.

“It’s a hit.” She gasped with round eyes. “It’s a hit!” she let out a delighted shriek and began jumping up and down. Emerson shared her joy by contributing to her peals of laughter with his own chuckles.

“I never hit a target before!” Charlotte exclaimed in awed delight, turned around and caught Emerson’s hands. “And you helped!” 

“Only a little bit.” He smiled and Charlotte giggled some more.

“Oh, I must show this to Oliver! He would never believe it. You’ll serve at witness wont you? Because he won’t believe it, if it’s coming from me you see? He would think I’m lying.” With amused eyes Emerson nodded and Charlotte turned around to get her brothers. But soon her footstep faltered and Charlotte found herself looking into a pair of smoldering of brown eyes.

William lied about fetching his other good bow. Instead he retreated into his study where he lifted the decanter of his excellent whisky and poured himself a drink. After granting himself a short respite and polishing off the drink, he sauntered back into the garden with a new purpose: he would apologize to Lady Charlotte for his distasteful behavior and diplomatically explain it to her that she needed to stay away from Emerson.

And so, with a new spring in his steps William emerged out of the house and into the garden only to stop short and discover that Lady Charlotte – his Lady Charlotte – was giggling in Emerson’s arms. William immediately hastened his strides and headed for the couple, apology forgotten, and diplomatic approach flew out the window. The only thing that mattered was wrenching his fiancée out of Emerson’s arms now – and preferably forever.

William saw Lady Charlotte’s arrow flew through the air and hit the round target some ten meters ahead. He heard her shouts of laughter and in her joy; Lady Charlotte took hold of Emerson’s hands. William waited for her to turn around and braced his hands on either side of his hips. When she eventually spun around, her grin slid off of her face the minute she saw him standing there.

“Crawford if you would excuse us, Lady Charlotte and I need to talk.”

Crawford hesitated at first but nevertheless he ultimately left when Lady Charlotte assured that she would be perfectly fine in his company. When they were finally left to themselves William took her hand and marched to a secluded corner of the garden, away from prying eyes. Lady Charlotte of course, being Lady Charlotte, struggled all the way.

“Unhand me sir!” she berated. William loosened his hold as soon as they reached the sanctuary of two apple trees, planted close together it hid them quite efficiently. Overhead between the leaves, autumn apples were ripe and ready for the picking. However, both of them were overwhelmed by irritation to appreciate anything but to latch their anger on each other.