Page 26 of The Winter Husband
“O-possum?”
“A white forest rat, bit of a scavenger.”
“Rats don’t grow that big.” So maybe she’d been foolish. He didn’t have to rub it in. “Even in Paris.”
He lifted the gun into the light. “You had this in your hands. Why didn’t you shoot it?”
She blinked at him, not understanding. He couldn’t be serious, asking that question. She started to explain but stopped. To tell him the truth would be to admit how useless she was. The thought brought a flush of both anger and shame.
“By the saints,” he barked. “You don’t know how to shoot a flintlock.”
She tilted her chin. “I must have missed that lesson in the orphanage.”
Lucas mumbled a string of words in an odd, guttural language, but there was no denying the tone.
Was there a limit to the contempt he could hold her in…or she for herself?
“Brace both chairs against the door after I leave.” Lucas turned away, his voice gruff. “I’ll fix the hinges and the latch tomorrow. For now, get some sleep.”
As if she’d ever close her eyes again.
“First thing in the morning,” he barked, pausing at the threshold, “I’m teaching you how to shoot.”
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning, twenty paces behind the cabin, Lucas swiped the top of a tree stump, sending powder tumbling into the drifts. Yanking a block of firewood out of his satchel, he set it on end and then waded through the snow to the next stump. He hazarded a glance toward the back of the cabin, where Marie stood in her hampering long skirts, her chin tilted at a defiant angle he recognized all too well.
Damn Talon. Damn him, and the nuns of the orphanage, and the administrators in Paris, and even King Louis XIV, for sending innocents to Quebec. She couldn’t cook. She couldn’t hunt. She couldn’t shoot. Talon might as well have fed her to the bears.
And now everything inside him screamed.
Protect her.
He finished setting up the targets and trudged in her direction. She didn’t say a word, but her stance shouted,Don’t break my pride.At least she wasn’t making the inhuman screeching noise he’d heard last night, more unnerving than the death cries of fighting raccoons. He’d been outside the barn, roused from a restless sleep to relieve himself, when the shrieking began. He’d raced to the cabin, where she’d thrown herself against him like a frightened kitten.
Small. Trembling. Soft.
“Take off your gloves.” He seized the flintlock leaning against the cabin. “To shoot a gun, you have to feel it.”
He planted the butt of the weapon on his boot to start the loading process. He did it quickly—she’d have plenty of opportunity later to learn how to load it herself. For now, he just had to get her shooting. Seizing the powder horn hung across his chest, he pulled off the cork, tapped some black powder into the bore, and then replaced the cork before letting the horn fall to his side. Flipping up the flap of his pouch, he grabbed a ball and dropped it into the bore, then used the ramrod to shove the ball deeper. Swinging the flintlock up, he checked the pan to make sure it was dry and then added more powder.
When he finished, she was still pinching off, finger by finger, a pair of gloves better suited for picking up porcelain cups.
“Face the targets,” he said.
Her midnight-blue eyes flashed, but she did as she was told, turning to give him a view of slim back. He came up right behind her, leaning to one side to present the gun so she could grip it in the proper position. She put her left hand around the bore and her right hand on the stock in search of a good grip.
He said, “Put the butt in the hollow of your shoulder.”
She fumbled with positioning the weapon until he had no choice but to reach around her.
“Right here.” He tapped his bare fingers against her shawl and then guided the wide end into place. Her mantle was meant for Paris winters, so he’d made her leave it behind in the cabin in favor of multiple layers of clothing. Now she was swathed in woolen shawls, one wrapped over her hair. It was impossible to keep his body from touching hers and still position her hands correctly. Her head was tucked under his chin. Soft fibers feathered against his throat. As he stepped back and withdrew his hand from where he’d adjusted her grip, he brushed a curve that could only be the side of her breast.
“Cradle the barrel.” He spoke sharply, as if the fullness of that firm curve wasn’t imprinted on his skin. “Don’t hold it in your fist like that. Let the barrel lie in the cup of your left hand.”
Such a small hand, cold and pink.
With a grunt, he leaned in to lay his fingers over hers. They felt like icicles. He swallowed her hand in the warmth of his palm, using the excuse of nudging her grip into a better position. By the saints, it wasn’t even deep winter, and she could barely suffer this tender cold. If his treacherous eyes hadn’t deceived him, there wasn’t a lot of extra padding on her bones, except in one place, the swell of which, plumped up by petticoats and all the other nonsense Frenchwomen wore beneath their dresses, now pressed against him in a way that made sweat rise on his brow, despite the chill.
