After the Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the dark. “Why?” Her voice was quiet and tight.
    “Because I want you to understand how to take in all the information from your surroundings. I want you to understand that you already know things you don’t realize you already know.” And because she did not answer, but continued to look at him with her doubt all but written across her face, he added, “I promise you no harm. And I am a man of my word.”
    Lady Claire Jellicoe weighed the merit of his assertion for a long time before she finally said, “Yes, I suppose you are, aren’t you? All right.” And she did slowly close her eyes.
    But, he noticed, she took surreptitious possession of the gun. Clever girl.
    He rewarded her for it. “Excellent. And you’ve already done the first thing to make yourself safer, taking hold of the gun. But the way you’re holding it, I can see that you are unfamiliar with firearms. Actually—open your eyes.” He shipped the oars and took the gun from her hands. “We’ll start with this.”
    It was both remarkable and, from his point of view, rather criminal that her father, or one of her surplus of brothers had never taught her even the rudiments of shooting. If he did nothing else, he would remedy that.
    “This is a Royal Navy, sea service–style flintlock pistol, with flat stepped locks with half-cock safeties, waterproof pans, roller frizzens, and reinforced cocks. Take hold of it firmly—point it away. The gun is loaded. Always point it away from a person—or an animal for that matter—unless you mean to aim it at them. Never aim your gun at anyone or anything which you are not prepared to shoot. And kill. Do you understand?”
    “You must have a good deal of experience with guns.”
    “Yes.” He did, in fact, have rather a lot of experience of guns, among other weapons. He had learned how to handle and fire pistols in his short stint in the navy as a boy, and he had fired hunting pieces as part of his later training in the gentlemanly art of shooting. But gentlemen generally didn’t carry firearms the likes of his pistol. Or the long knife in his boot.
    But he was no gentleman.
    And being a lady had only served Lady Claire Jellicoe ill this night.
    “It’s at half cock, and the frizzen is closed. Which means that it’s been loaded and primed. Powder is in the pan, under the pan cover, which is this part of the frizzen, here.” He pointed to the striking plate. “That lock mechanism there, the hammer, when toggled back thusly”—he put the weapon into her hand, and closed his own larger fingers around hers, helping her to thumb the cock fully back—“means you’re ready to fire.”
    He would have raised her arm up beneath his, in order to show her how to steady her arm and take aim. But his brain—the intricate, organized, resourceful brain that had seen him through nearly thirty astonishingly full years of use—refused to do his bidding.
    Because beneath his palm, her skin was soft. So astonishingly, exceedingly, innocently soft. Softer than morning air. Softer than wonder.
    And he could only wonder at how small and delicate and nearly fragile the bones beneath her extraordinary skin felt under the crude, dexterous strength of his hand.
    He had never touched her, never been so close to her before. So close the damp, liquid smell of the river faded away, and there was nothing but her. Nothing but orange blossom and lily and rose, and something beyond mere perfume. Something that confused and unhinged and liberated him all at once.
    He could have recited the scientific nomenclature for the oxidized alcohols and esters and compounds that gave her orange blossom fragrance the subtle welcoming hint of nutmeg, but he had no words, no knowledge, to combat what the scent of her did to his brain, and how it made him want to do more than cover her hand.
    How it made him want to cover her entire body with his own, and feel every delicate bone and sweet muscle within her. How he wanted to explore every