Page 47 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

Elizabeth gasped and then clapped her hands together. “Oh well done!”

It was a cry of honest admiration and Stephen was surprised with how it touched him to hear it from her. “The first of many, my duchess,” he said, dropping off the horse and leading both with him to fetch the bird so they would not take off with Elizabeth while his back was turned. “You clearly do bring me luck after all.”

She blushed when he looked back at her, quick and bright pink and he smiled. Perhaps he was not the only one feeling a warmth at being admired.

CHAPTER 22

“There’s another,” Elizabeth called, pointing towards fluttering feathers in the underbrush and thrilling a little as Stephen moved liquidly, his second gun already going off.

He was impressive as he worked, practiced at reloading and an accurate enough shot that no bird they had spotted so far had escaped his aim. She slipped from the horse and walked over to join him where he was standing under a spreading oak, the dappling light over his face as he concentrated on ramming the next shot into his first fowling piece.

He had brought two weapons, advising her that it was often safer when out hunting to have a backup in case one were to only wound an animal and need to put it out of its misery. It made sense to her. While she had never been on a hunt, one thing that Dudley had always spoken about to anyone nearby with passionate interest was the workings of guns. He had a large collection and when he was a teenager he had spent hours loading and reloading them.

The riflemen in the army can do this twice a minutehe would say when questioned.Am I not better than a common soldier?

Elizabeth could remember how uneasy she had felt during those months, how it had felt to be in the woodlands around the estate and have her shoulders prickle and wonder if maybe Dudley might be out with one of his guns.

While he had never threatened her with them, something both his parents had been very serious about, she had always wondered if she would not look rather like a deer to her brother, prey to be killed with fear to be feasted on afterwards, as fulsomely as a venison dinner.

“You do this well,” she said softly to Stephen, trying to push away the increasing sense of wrongness she was feeling.

Perhaps it was because she knew that out in the forest Dudley was prowling around with only the dubious restraint of the Duke of Seymour to keep him in check. Perhaps it was the way he had been so quiet all morning, checking his weapons as the others talked, watching those around him with dark malignant eyes.

“I have had a lot of practice,” Stephen said. “Come, let us walk a little way. I am tired of riding and the horses could do with a rest.”

“Gladly,” she said, taking his arm after he secured the horses. “I have not heard nearly so many other shots from the forest. I think you shall win the wager, Your Grace.”

He smiled at her, the secret special smile he only ever seemed to send to her. It made his eyes crinkle and sparkle and her heart skipped a beat every time she saw it. While she knew that he might not feel for her the way that she felt for him, it was something between them. Something more than convenience and business and practicality. It wasmoreand it made her hope, no matter how foolish she told herself that was.

“Of course I shall,” he said, grinning in a quick confident grin that made him look boyish and wild. She wondered what he had been like as a young man, whether he had been freer and wilder, not constrained with the trappings of dukedom keeping him serious and tired. “I have your good luck at my side and I also picked the part of the woods which has the most birds in it.”

She laughed, surprised. “Stephen!”

“Elizabeth,” he mimicked back. “What, was I supposed to let Seymour or your brother beat me?”

“Herbert might have,” she said, laughing again. “And what about the Marquess?”

“Perceval knows that all is fair in a wager,” Stephen said gaily. “And as for my dear brother, I love him with all my heart but he has not the patience or the eye for hunting in a woodland. He will have loosed his shot at anything that moves or gotten distracted by Perceval looking to gather a bunch of wild flowers for the Marchioness.”

She could picture it distinctly, Perceval exclaiming over some of the lovely blooms in the woodlands while Herbert waited impatiently, partridges sneaking away behind them. It was such a charming, such an appealing image that she didn’t notice the sudden stillness around them for a moment too long.

It was the sort of stillness of a woodland when a predator was nearby. She had been out one evening when she was very young, wandering the estate looking for bird’s nests and moths. The evening had been filled with sound, bird call and rustling and all the things she had already become so used to. But then everything stopped dead, so still and silent that she had felt the hairs on the back of her neck go up. A fox slinked from the shadows, a bird in its mouth as all other wildlife froze to avoid becoming a second dinner.

That was happening now. That was happening now and her arms were covered with goosebumps and her scalp was prickling with the sense ofwrong wrong wrong wrong -

Stephen was still speaking but Elizabeth couldn’t hear him through the rushing in her ears. She turned her head and saw as if in a dream her brother standing there, a way off, his gun trained on them. He was hunting them after all and it was too late to stop him.

It happened very slowly, or perhaps very quickly. The gun bucked and she moved, moved quicker than she had ever moved in her life. She flung herself into Stephen, pushing him away and feeling a line of fire bloom over her shoulder - red and brightand horrible. She fell onto the forest floor, winded and in pain, unable to process what was happening.

Was she feeling this weak already? Why couldn’t she move?

“Stay down,” Stephen hissed in her ears. She felt like the world was coming in and out of focus, barely managing to process that he was pressed over her, keeping her shielded. She couldn’t get him to move, her hands were trapped under her and her tongue felt so thick in her mouth. She wanted to tell him to run to safety. She wanted to tell him not to be hurt for her, not again. She knew it was again. She knew that with a clarity that had come from a place inside her, where things were hiding.

There was no point hiding from them anymore.

He wouldn’t move. He was so heavy. She was - she was -

Stephen cursed softly as another bullet kicked up dirt just an inch from them. How Barnes was firing so quickly, he didn’t know but it felt like there had been more bullets than was possible in the last few minutes.

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