Chapter 11

The arrow struck true.

Everything froze, save for Eleanor’s heart, which was racing like a hare with a fox on its heels. The duke’s shoulders, which had gone rigid, were drawn up to his ears.

Slowly, he turned.

To say that his expression was murderous would be the grossest sort of understatement, the equivalent of saying that it rained occasionally on the shores of Lake Windermere, or that the Irish did not entirely enjoy British rule.

Refusing to be cowed, Eleanor met his gaze and held it.

All at once, six-and-a-half feet of irate duke came barreling down the graveled path toward her. Beside her, Clarissa was openly cackling. Eleanor suspected Felix was doing the same. Although he had clapped a hand over his mouth, his shoulders were shaking uncontrollably, and there were tears streaming down his cheeks.

Kate grabbed her arm. “Run. Run. You need to run.”

She would probably regret it, but Eleanor was not the running sort. She lifted her chin and assumed an insouciant expression. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but this caused the fury in the duke’s eyes to flare even hotter.

She was bracing herself to be mowed down when he seized her upper arm and proceeded to haul her toward the far end of the archery range. Eleanor stumbled but managed to keep her feet, mostly because he was all but carrying her.

She wasn’t sure where she expected him to take her, but she assumed it would be someplace private where he could shout at her until her hair blew free of its pins.

Instead, he stopped at the staging area for the far-right target, the one that had recently been abandoned by the De Courcey sisters.

“What are you doing?” Eleanor hissed, yanking her arm free from his grip. Behind him, she could see her three sisters and Felix huddled together against the wind, watching them in open fascination.

He removed a bow from the rack, then turned to her with a malicious smile. “Helping you improve your aim.”

Eleanor tossed her head. “My aim is excellent.”

“Oh?” he asked, selecting an arrow from the bucket with the grace of a lion. “It didn’t seem excellent a moment ago.”

She took two strides forward and leaned into him, refusing to be cowed. “I always hit my target.”

“Hmm.” He looked distinctly unimpressed. “Let’s see, shall we?”

With surprising speed for so large a man, he spun her to face the target and came up behind her in one fluid motion. Eleanor wasn’t sure how he did it, but somehow, he got her hands into position on the bow beneath his.

She had on a single shooting glove, but it left her fingertips bare, and he didn’t have any gloves on at all! The feeling of his big, warm, strong hands covering hers felt slightly indecent… but mostly wonderful. And even worse, he had assumed the same position Felix and Pippa had adopted earlier, with Eleanor’s back to Jasper’s front and his arms encircling her. Unlike gentle Felix, Jasper did not bother to leave a decorous eight inches between their bodies. No, Eleanor could feel the brush of his coat against the back of her spencer, could sense the heat of him radiating around her.

Oh, but this was the worst part. Because Eleanor, who had never been held by a man before, and had expected to go to her grave without ever having done so, was being held by the most virile, most handsome man she had ever seen. And the most terrible thing of all was how right it felt. Everywhere else she went, she was too tall and unfashionably stocky.

But standing this close to Jasper St. James, for the first time in her life, Eleanor didn’t feel overlarge and ungainly. She felt perfect.

Perfect for him.

But of course, this was nothing but a cruel trick that the universe was playing upon her. Jasper St. James detested her. He was holding her as a joke. She would never feel his arms around her again, and, when she looked back upon this moment, her memories would be tarnished by the knowledge that, in spite of the overwhelming feelings coursing through her, the moment hadn’t been real, not in any of the ways that counted.

He nocked an arrow and forced her to draw back the bowstring. His voice in her ear was as dark as midnight and caused gooseflesh to break out across her arms and neck. “You see, Miss Weatherby, when you shoot an arrow, you aim it at the target. The target,” he emphasized as he loosed the arrow.

Her voice when it emerged was breathy. “And what if I did?”

Jasper couldn’t decide if taking Eleanor Weatherby in his arms had been a brilliant idea or a terrible one.

Not that it had been much of an idea. The closest thing he’d had to a coherent thought after the minx had shot him in the arse was, I’ll show her.

What he was going to show her, precisely, he still hadn’t a clue. One thing he was determined not to show her was the cockstand that had sprung up the second he pulled her into his arms. Which made it rather imperative that he carry on with this poorly thought-out plan and keep her in front of him, lest his brother and her sisters get quite the eyeful.

But the point was, he hadn’t realized he was going to stop before the fifth target and yank her into his arms until he was doing it. And now he would have to deal with the consequences of his decision.

The first consequence was discovering how perfect Eleanor Weatherby felt in his arms. He was accustomed to going through life feeling like a great hulking brute, too large for door frames, spindly Chippendale chairs, and most of his dancing partners.

But standing with Eleanor Weatherby in his arms, he felt just right. She came up to his nose, meaning he could smell the clean white soap she used. He must be losing his mind, because in that moment, he would have sworn it smelled better than the expensive perfumes worn by the most fashionable ladies of the ton. From this angle, he had an enticing view of both her hips, which looked to be just the right size for his hands, and her trembling bosom. Even her arms were the perfect length so that she fit within his embrace like a puzzle piece, handcrafted to nest perfectly with him.

Shocking discoveries, all. But the situation’s saving grace, the thing that allowed him to retain the upper hand, was Eleanor’s reaction to him. The unflappable wallflower was suddenly flushed and trembling. At last, Jasper had managed to put her off balance.

Although… truth be told, he was feeling a bit disoriented himself. Eleanor Weatherby had a strange effect on him.

He shook himself. This would not do. Drawing back the arrow, he said, “I believe you are mistaken, Miss Weatherby. You see, the target is over there.”

He loosed the arrow and breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that it had flown true, because his hands were none too steady.

“And what if I found a more attractive target?” Eleanor asked breathlessly. This made things a thousand times worse, because it wasn’t a terrified sort of breathlessness, or an I’ve-been-running sort of breathlessness.

It was an aroused sort of breathlessness. Jasper would know. He was experiencing the same feeling himself.

And the knowledge that Eleanor Weatherby wasn’t as indifferent to him as her insouciant glare and nose-in-the-air posture would suggest only fanned the flames currently bursting to life beneath the falls of his trousers.

Some devilish impulse had him reaching across her body to retrieve another arrow from the bucket behind her, so that she was entirely enveloped in his arms. The back of his forearm brushed the underside of her breasts, which were pleasingly full, and he felt her shudder against him.

He was unable to suppress the husky growl in his voice. “You find it attractive, do you?”

She smirked at him over her shoulder and gave him a little nod as if to say, well played. Jasper’s chest puffed out at the thought that he had finally impressed her.

“Perhaps attractive is not the right word. An irresistible target? Oh, dear—I fear that would go to your head as well. Let us say, a deserving target.”

He nocked the arrow and together they drew back the bowstring. “Think very carefully, Miss Weatherby. Do you truly wish to suggest that you intentionally targeted my backside?”

As he loosed the arrow, she retorted, “Perhaps I was trying to assist you, by calling attention to the body part whose name you were emulating.”

Jasper scowled as the arrow bounced off the rim of the target. “Did you just call me an—”

Fortunately, a deafening rumble emerged from the sky just as he said the word arse, because Jasper had never cursed in front of a lady and hadn’t meant to start.

It seemed that Miss Weatherby understood his meaning well enough, because as soon as the rumbling died down, she shrugged. “If the shoe fits, Your Grace. Or, in this case, the trousers.”

Jasper could not believe her gall. He had never been treated with such insolence, never once in his life! “Why, I ought to bend you over and—”

He cut himself off before he could finish that thought. Because giving Eleanor Weatherby a swat on the bottom had been the farthest thought from his mind.

Oh, no—when he pictured her bent over before him, it wasn’t his hand he was using to pound her…

She turned in his arms so they were facing each other. Her lips were inches from his. All he would have to do was tilt his head down a fraction, and…

“Bend me over and what?” she asked breathlessly, sounding insufficiently outraged and far too interested for his peace of mind.

Jasper was losing what few shreds of sanity he had left. This had been the worst plan he had ever come up with. He had no exit strategy. They had four curious onlookers standing just thirty feet away, he was sporting a raging cockstand, and the only suggestion his brain could produce was to haul her behind the hedgerow so he could ruck up her skirts and fall on her like a rutting animal. Which he absolutely could not do.

No matter how appealing it sounded.

Now he had no way to get out of this ridiculous situation that was entirely of his own making.

What he needed was a miracle.

A sudden flash of light illuminated the gardens followed by a sharp crack, and the heavens answered Jasper’s unspoken prayers by opening up and dumping approximately nine hundred gallons of ice-cold water down the front of his trousers.