“Estimate, then.”
He sighed. “Very well. I would estimate two dozen times, at least, since last Christmas. Perhaps another fifty times last year. Maybe a hundred in total.”
I felt accomplished. “And do you believe that I am serious in my intention?”
“Yes, I do.” Henry’s jaw was set as he stared down the arrow at the target.
22
“See? You understand me on this matter, and you are only my friend.
But my own flesh and blood—!”
He flinched, his head jerking to the side to look at me, and his arrow fell off his bow. He lowered the bow and gave me a piercing look, his grey eyes glinting like steel. Then he raised it again and leveled his gaze at the target. “Only your friend? He narrowed his eyes at the target, his pressed lips causing a line to crease in his cheek. “I think I deserve a better title than that.”
“Like what?” I asked, looking at him askance.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He released his arrow. Another solid hit, right on target. “Perhaps ‘The Giver of My Heart’s Desire’?”
An outraged laugh burst from me. “The Giver of My Heart’s Desire?”
A smile crept across his lips. “I will never call you that,” I said, picking up another arrow.
“Why not? I earned it. I think you should call me by that title every time you see me.”
“How do you believe you earned it?” I demanded.
“I gave you your cat, and that is the thing you love most in this world.” He gestured at Cora lying in the grass nearby. “Therefore, I have given you your heart’s desire.”
I scoffed, then drew back the string and released the arrow. It hit the target. Finally. I smiled with satisfaction. “I am not going to call you The Giver of My Heart’s Desire. That is ridiculous.”
Henry looked at me with a satisfied smile. “There. Your eyebrows are back to normal now.”
“You are not supposed to tease me about my eyebrows, remember?
We made that pact five years ago.”
“That was a one-time arrangement, after you tried to shave them off with your father’s razor.” He pulled back the string on his bow, leveling his gaze at the target. Henry’s form was something I had always admired but never more so than now. At age twenty his back was broader, his shoulders stronger than ever before. The muscles in his arms stood out, 23
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n cords of light and shadow. There was that line in his cheek again—that line that was more crease than dimple, and I had to look away. I heard Henry’s arrow hit the target while I bent down and drew the last arrow for myself.
My last arrow flew true, and I breathed a sigh of relief. This was better. I had found my aim again. I set down my bow and walked over to the target with Henry. After prying my arrows loose and gathering the errant ones, I wandered over to the large maple tree that stood on one side of the clearing. It was so tall that its lowest branches began far above my head.
I leaned against its familiar, mottled bark and sighed deeply. My temper was in check, but resentment and grief still burned within me.
Henry joined me, leaning against the tree as well. I held my arrows in my hand, studying their feathers and wishing, not for the first time, that I could fly away from this place. I felt Henry’s gaze on my face.
“What is really bothering you, Kate?” he asked in a quiet voice. “This problem with your mother is nothing new. What has happened today to upset you?”
I ran the feathers of the arrows between my fingers, fighting back another round of angry tears. I drew in a deep breath, struggling for some control over my emotions.
“She has said I may not go to Blackmoore,” I finally said.
“What?” Disbelief mingled with anger. “Why not?”
I tipped my head back and covered my eyes with my hand, hiding the fight against my tears. “She is angry with me for refusing Mr. Cooper’s proposal.”
“Mr. Cooper?” Henry’s voice was appalled. “The man is diseased!”
I laughed a little, a tear leaking out of one eye. “I know!” My stomach turned as I recalled his most recent visit. “The last time I saw him, his ear was bandaged. Why is it always a different part of his body that is bandaged?”
“I cannot answer that,” Henry said in a serious voice. I looked at 24
him, and there was such a look of revulsion on his face that I burst out laughing.
“The bandage was stained, too,” I said, wheezing with laughter. “A greenish color.”
Henry shook his head. “Stop. Say no more.”
I was laughing so hard that tears ran down my cheeks. But they re-minded me of what I really had to cry about, and the thought sobered me.
“It is entirely unfair,” I said, “that when we have finally convinced your mother to let me visit, my mother has put a stop to it.”
Something flashed in his eyes—something that made him look away for a moment. “How right you are.” He sighed. “So . . . I take it this means that your mother has not yet accepted how fundamentally stubborn you are. She thinks she can still convince you to marry? Turn you into a proper, obedient daughter, hm? Will she be rearranging the order of the universe while she’s at it?”
I smiled sadly. “Something like that.”
“You know, you never have explained to me your decision never to marry.”
I shook my head. No matter how many times he had asked me about that in the past year and a half, I refused to give an answer. “Not today, Henry. We have more important battles to fight.” I looked over at him, meeting his gaze with my own. “I must go to Blackmoore. I must, ” I whispered. “I think I will resent her for the rest of my life if she keeps me here.”
He nodded, his grey eyes serious, as if he understood perfectly the gravity of the situation. If anyone did understand, it was he. He had made me that model, after all. I wiped away another tear, and that time I was sure Henry saw.
Henry nudged me with his elbow. “Come, now. There is no need to despair. We are two very intelligent people capable of outsmarting one mother, I think.” He stepped away from the tree and began pacing.
“What does your mother want, more than anything?”
25
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n “For me to marry,” I answered immediately.
“Yet you are determined not to.”
“Precisely.”
“Hm.” More pacing. Then he paused and turned to me. “Can you not pretend to want to marry? Tell her there will be many eligible gentlemen at Blackmoore, and you may make a match there.”
I shot him a look of disbelief. “No. There is no point in winning the battle if it means jeopardizing the war.” I tapped my arrows against the tree, willing myself to think of a solution. “But what else does she want in life?” I thought hard for a long moment, then shrugged. “Nothing. This is all my mother lives for—marrying off her daughters.” And flirting with as many men as she can, I added silently.
Henry looked at me sharply. “Her daughters,” he said slowly. “Plural.”
“Yes. There are four of us. Three if you don’t count Eleanor.”
He smiled. “Maria.”
I looked a question at him.
“Tell her that Maria may come as well and that she will have a chance to make a match at Blackmoore.”
I considered his suggestion dubiously. “What will be her incentive, though?”
“To be rid of Maria. To give Maria a chance to make a match.” He paused, and a wicked gleam lit up his eyes. “To enrage my mother.”
I smiled crookedly. My mother and Mrs. Delafield had been polite enemies for the past four years, even though we continued to associate as families. I wondered if Henry knew the reason behind their dislike of each other. I had never broached the subject with him since I had found out what had caused their rift. And I certainly was not going to be the one to tell him.
“It could work,” he insisted.
“I don’t know if I can convince her,” I said. “She seems so intent on punishing me . . .”
“And having Maria along is not a punishment?”
26