Page 47 of The Duke’s Caught Bride

The water shocked her when she plunged her arms in, cold enough to send a jolt through the wool of her sleeves where they had been rolled past the cuffs. The apple slid away from her teeth once, twice, a third time. She could hear Freddie shouting instructions from the sideline, none of them useful.

Charlie’s quieter voice called, “Try the small one on the left.”

Her hair was soaking. Water ran down her chin and into the collar of her dress.

The farmer chuckled. A group of village women had gathered to watch. She could feel their stares on the back of her neck, but she did not withdraw. She was not going to surface empty-mouthed in front of Freddie and hear about it for the next three years.

She lunged forward. Her teeth broke the apple’s skin and closed around the flesh, then she straightened, dripping, triumphant, the apple clamped between her jaws.

Freddie erupted into cheers. Charlie clapped, two sharp strikes that rang out above the din. Even Miss Leyton smiled.

Alice removed the apple from her mouth and laughed. She pushed her wet hair back from her face and turned to find Kenneth watching her. His gaze settled on her mouth and stayed there a beat too long, then another beat still. She could feel the weight of his attention on her lips, warm and focused, while a flush that had nothing to do with the cold water crept up her neck.

She looked away first and reached for the cloth the farmer offered, pressing it against her dripping chin.

“Well done,” Kenneth praised, his voice rough. He cleared his throat. “Well done.”

They moved through the fair. Freddie led the way, as he always did, keeping up a running commentary that left no silence unfilled. Charlie walked beside Alice, his bag of sugared almonds tucked into his coat pocket.

The cannon blast came without warning. A man at the far end of the green had set off a signal gun to mark the start of a sack race, and the report cracked across the fair like a whip. Charlie flinched, and his hand shot out and closed around Alice’s fingers, gripping them hard. He pressed himself against her side.

Alice curled her fingers around his and held on. She did not kneel or fuss. She simply held his hand and kept walking, as though this were the most natural arrangement in the world. After a few yards, his grip loosened, but he did not release her.

Kenneth had stopped three paces ahead. He turned and looked at Charlie’s hand in Alice’s, and Alice watched his expression shift from surprise to a reluctant recognition of what it meant that his quieter son, the one who measured every interaction and weighed every risk before committing to contact, had reached for her without hesitation. He swallowed once, turned around, and walked on.

The archery butts stood at the far edge of the green, away from the crowd, six straw targets set at forty yards. A chalk line marked the shooting position, and a squat man in a felt hat was collecting entries for the next round.

“Papa.” Freddie planted himself in Kenneth’s path. “You should enter.”

“I should not.”

“But you’re good at archery. Mr. Briggs says that you used to practice in the south paddock every morning. He says you could put an arrow through a keyhole at fifty paces.”

“Mr. Briggs exaggerates.”

“But show us.” Freddie crossed his arms. “Enter the contest. Win us a prize.”

Kenneth looked at the targets, then at the queue of farmers and tradesmen lining up to shoot. He shook his head.

“Perhaps your father is worried he might lose,” Alice piped up. She kept her tone mild, innocent. “In front of the tenants. That would be embarrassing.”

Kenneth turned to her. She met his gaze and held it.

“I am not worried about losing.”

“Then there is no reason not to enter.”

He looked at Freddie, whose face had achieved a state of expectation so intense that refusal would have been a cruelty, and then he looked back at the targets.

He removed his coat and handed it to Alice. The waistcoat beneath stretched across his shoulders, and Alice busied herself by folding the coat over her arm rather than looking at the width of his back as he walked to the chalk line.

The felt-hat man handed him a bow. Kenneth tested the draw, adjusted his grip, and sighted along the shaft. Alice watched his right hand draw the string to his cheek, the cords of his forearm taut beneath his rolled shirtsleeves, before he loosed the arrow.

It struck the center ring and buried itself in the straw with a clean, solid thud.

Freddie shouted. Kenneth nocked a second arrow without expression and released it into the center ring again, an inch from the first. He drew a third and then a fourth, and each one found the same tight cluster, the shafts angled slightly, crowding one another in the straw.

A crowd had gathered. Farmers nudged each other. The felt-hat man rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the target.