The shooting commenced not long after all evidence of breakfast had been cleared away. The servants had been well occupied during the morning hours setting up awnings to protect the ladies from the ill effects of the midday sun. Targets had also been erected on a clear, flat expanse of lawn with which the participants would display their prowess with a gun.
Regan did not much care for shooting. Edmund had always been more of an angler, choosing to wile away his early mornings at the stream that cut through their property, catching a bounty of fish that would no doubt accompany their dinner later that day. Regan often accompanied him to the water's edge, sitting on the bank to paint or sew or simply enjoy the pleasure of being out of doors and in her husband's company.
The constant firing of guns, on the other hand, was a noisy business, not to mention the smoke and the odor of gunpowder it put into the air. She was happy that Jack seemed to have taken after his father in that respect, preferring to perfect his own lures, to tramp into the dirt with his sister in search of worms and grubs and other bait, to wade into thigh-deep water in search of the still, shadowed pools where the largest fish tended to linger.
Settling herself beside Katharine, beneath the shade of an awning, Regan glanced around at the other women taking their seats at the delicate tables set out for everyone. Most of the women had changed from their morning attire, putting aside the plainer dresses of white and lace for more elaborate styles, more to be shown off among their peers. Regan still wore the same gown she'd changed into after her walk. It seemed pointless, she thought, to go through the elaborate process of undressing and dressing all over again. Even at home with the children, she often wore gowns smudged with food and dirt from her hours spent with them all the way to the dining table.
But here she was, amid a dozen other ladies who no doubt planned on wearing at least three separate outfits each and every day. Regan didn't own enough gowns for such activity, unless she were to send back to her home in Kent for the mourning dresses already packed away before she came.
"Thank you," Regan said to the footman who bent over their table, delivering cups of lemonade and a tray of delicate tarts filled with fresh berries and topped with dollops of cream. Joining them at the table were Miss Lane and her mother. The latter glanced up at Regan at her words to the servant, eyes sharp and brow furrowed.
Regan wondered at the look that reeked of disapproval, and then she understood what of her behavior had brought it on: She'd thanked the footman. Around the rest of the tent, the servants moved as if they were invisible, garnering nary a look from any of the assembled guests. But she had gone and thanked the man, a holdover from her efforts with the children to ensure they always used their proper manners, their "please and thank you's" whenever the situation called for them.
She met the woman's glare from across the small table and smiled before taking a sip of lemonade.
"Oh." The whisper of sound dropped from Katharine's mouth. Regan looked over to what had caught her daughter's attention and saw Mr. Winthrop walking across the lawn, several other gentlemen accompanying him.
There was nothing remarkable about Mr. Winthrop's build or stature. A man of average height, average weight, with average brown hair that was nearly vanished from the crown of his head, more visible now beneath the full light of the sun as he removed his hat to wipe his brow with a handkerchief. But Katharine had never been one to wax poetic about a man's appearance. If Mr. Winthrop had so caught her interest, it was his mind, his intellect that had secured it.
Further on, and Regan spotted Mr. Cranmer speaking with one of the servants who held a musket out to him. There was no grin on Mr. Cranmer's face. He appeared to be listening to the servant as he went through the particulars of the weapon with him. A few paces beyond, Lord Hays milled about on the grass, though she noticed the older gentleman occasionally glancing in Mr. Cranmer's direction, before his eyes darted towards the awning, as if he were searching for her.
Regan sat back in her chair and took another sip of lemonade. Lord Hays' behavior towards Mr. Cranmer still baffled her. If the two men had any prior connection, they certainly made no show of it. Were the dark looks and irritation on Lord Hays' side merely to do with Mr. Cranmer's attention towards her? Was the older gentleman simply jealous?
A new worry struck her as she sat there, while Katharine and Miss Lane exchanged chit-chat - or rather, while Miss Lane spoke incessantly about a new song she had learned and would regale everyone with later in the week. Regan had only been here for two days. Barely two days. Had Mr. Cranmer's attentions towards her already caught the notice of Lord Hays? What if others had already taken notice?
Or perhaps she was seeing something where there was nothing. Perhaps Lord Hays had no interest in her whatsoever, aside from an acquaintance of a friendly nature. She had never put forward that she was in search of a husband. Indeed, she had no desire to marry again. Edmund's will made certain that she and the children would be taken care of, generous dowries provided for the girls when they decided to marry. Regan neither wanted nor needed a man in her life. She was only here now to see that Katharine found her way towards making a suitable match. And again, Mr. Winthrop crossed her vision, and she sighed.
Mr. Winthrop, with the thin, greying hair. Mr. Winthrop, who appeared to be Katharine's senior by at least two decades. Mr. Winthrop, who spoke about Egypt and history and all of the things Katharine adored. All of the things that would not make her a suitable wife for any of the men Regan had hoped would be more likely to snag her daughter's eye. Men who were younger, for one thing. Well, for nearly everything.
And they were to be guests here for another two weeks, at least. Two weeks of Lord Hays and Mr. Cranmer and watching Katharine become more steadily infatuated with a man old enough to be her father. Of course, such a choice for a marriage partner was not an uncommon thing. Most young women ended up with men who were older, more settled, ready for children and the stability of married life.
Men utterly unlike Mr. Cranmer. But before Regan's thoughts could circle back around, a call went up from one of the servants. The gentlemen had chosen lots and sorted themselves into teams. The shooting, it seemed, was about to begin.
***
There were four teams of three gentlemen each. The teams were aided by several servants, who would load the next shot so the participants needed only worry about taking up their musket, aiming, and firing. Mr. Cranmer and Mr. Winthrop were on the same team, while Lord Hays was positioned several yards away on a team that included Lord Polmerol and a younger gentleman who looked to have never held a firearm in his life.
Mr. Cranmer was first in his group to shoot. He hit the target, but far from the center. Unperturbed, he passed his weapon to the waiting servant who began the task of loading the barrel with fresh ball and powder.
Regan winced at each shot that was fired, the noise catching her off guard even though she expected it every time. Despite every attempt to give each gentleman a fair share of her attention, her eyes continually strayed back towards Mr. Cranmer, again and again, until she gave in and took to watching him even when it was no longer his turn to shoot.
It was Lord Hays' voice that broke the spell. He was arguing with one of the servants, and then with Lord Polmerol when that man attempted to intervene.
"What is happening?" Regan asked to anyone at her table who would provide an answer
"Lord Hays wishes to exchange his musket for a new one," Mrs. Lane provided, while fanning herself languidly with a lace-edged handkerchief.
"I believe that he is upset with his performance thus far and so has taken to blaming it on his gun," Katharine put in. "Though I do not think a new weapon will aid his chances. He does not hold himself well when he shoots. He is too stiff, and the line of his left arm affects his aim."
Katharine's observations earned another disapproving glance from Mrs. Lane. Apparently, aside from thanking servants, women should also not express views on such male-dominated pursuits as shooting. Regan picked up a strawberry tart, plunked it onto her plate, and licked a smear of cream from the side of her thumb. "Will he be allowed to switch in the middle of the tournament?"
"He should, if he believes there is something wrong with his weapon." Mrs. Lane put her nose into the air and spoke without looking at either Regan or Katharine, as if it was some unseen creature who had made the query.
Lord Hays' ruffled feathers were soon smoothed by the intervention of Lord Polmerol. Another musket was provided, and Lord Hays snatched it up with such violence Regan feared he was about to club one of the nearest servants over the head with it. He turned then, raised the musket, and took aim.
Katharine had been correct in her description of Lord Hays' stance. Too stiff and awkward, the tendons in his neck tense and standing out in relief above his collar. The shot came, along with its puff of smoke and report that seemed to reverberate across the lawn and into the trees beyond. Even several yards away, Regan could make out the curse that fell from his lips. He'd missed the target entirely. Again. All the exchange of weapons had done was prove he was the one at fault after all.
Regan glanced at Katharine, whose attention was already diverted by the next man up to shoot. Mr. Winthrop took his next turn. He held the musket easily in his hands, raising it as if it were merely an extension of his arms. A wait the length of a breath as he aimed, the shot rang out, and a shout of congratulations sounded from Mr. Cranmer and the other gentleman on their team. The ball had struck the target at dead center. Easily the best shot of the afternoon so far.
Katharine bounced in her seat, applauding along with all the other ladies busy watching the shooting unfold.
"Pure luck, I am certain," Mrs. Lane said, still waving her handkerchief about, despite the coolness beneath the awning and the steady breeze that had prevented the warmth of the afternoon from lending too much discomfort to the festivities. "I cannot imagine the poor man has had much experience with a true gentleman's weapon." She leaned forward, perfect curls bobbing over her shoulders from beneath the ruffled edge of her cap. "His father was in trade, you know. In Blackpool," she added, upper lip curled in distaste. "Why Lady Polmerol chose to invite him as a guest beneath her roof, I cannot imagine, unless he has performed some great service to the family and so they feel they must condescend to the fellow."
"I believe that Mr. Winthrop and Lord Polmerol attended Oxford together," Katharine spoke up, both her posture and the set of her mouth indicating that she was holding a great deal of irritation beneath the surface of a calm, polite exterior. "They share an interest in history, of which Mr. Winthrop has become quite the expert and much celebrated in intellectual circles."
"Hmm." Mrs. Lane gave a final wave of her handkerchief and instead looked out towards the lawn, where the men cycled through their next turn of participants. "A shame then, that his pedigree must be so ordinary." She spoke the last word in the tone of an obscenity.
Katharine cleared her throat and rose from her seat. "I find I must beg your pardon. I feel a terrible headache coming on and I think I must return indoors to my room. Good afternoon."
Regan watched her walk briskly back towards the house. She considered following, but knew that Katharine suffered no headache or physical ailment. In fact, Regan considered it a boon for Mrs. Lane that Katharine had excused herself, before she'd taken the opportunity to dig in her heels and pronounce herself a full champion for Mr. Winthrop's honor.
"I hope she is well!" Miss Lane piped up, sincere worry etched across her otherwise smooth brow. "I know I had such a headache a few weeks ago, and only a glass of wine would succeed in taking it away. But - oh! - did it leave me feeling so muddled for the remainder of the evening! I could scarcely walk without having to lean on someone's arm for support!"
Regan remained for the rest of the shooting. Mr. Cranmer and Mr. Winthrop's team won in the end, with Mr. Winthrop earning special recognition for the accuracy of his shots.
"It's all down to the weapon in these sorts of things," Lord Hays commented as he approached their table. His face was flushed beneath the brim of his hat, the color in his face more from his leftover irritation at his poor performance than from the time spent beneath the sun. A servant appeared at his side with a tray of freshly poured lemonade, and he snatched up one of the cups, dismissing the man with a gesture before he drank down the contents of the cup in a single swallow. "No matter what skill one may boast about, if you're handed a faulty tool, then of course it's an easy thing to be outdone by a few gloating upstarts."
"I quite agree," Mrs. Lane said, lace fluttering around the neckline of her dress as she nodded and plucked at the fabric there. "Such a motley collection of guests Lady Polmerol has assembled this year. Such as that Mr. Cranmer..." She nodded towards the lawn, where the said Mr. Cranmer stood chatting with Mr. Winthrop, the both of them evidently in good spirits.
"Mr. Cranmer is Maggie- I mean, Lady Polmerol's cousin." Regan cleared her throat when she realized all of the attention from around the table - Lord Hays' in particular - focused tightly on her. "They were raised together for a time, I understand. She considers him something of a brother."
Lord Hays made an unintelligible sound in the back of his throat, though its tone was not at all complimentary. His gaze settled on Regan, and she thought he was about to speak, but instead lifted his hat to sweep his hair back from his perspiring forehead before he returned it to his head. "May I escort you ladies back to the house?" he offered instead, some measure of affability returning to his expression.
"Oh, but of course, my lord!" Mrs. Lane rose from her seat, nudging her daughter as she stood. "But you should take Miss Lane's arm, you know. I am a stalwart in the heat, but she is tremendously more delicate than I."
Regan found herself maneuvered to the rear of the group by Mrs. Lane's efforts, though Lord Hays looked back at her more than once as they began their walk back towards the house. She wondered if Mrs. Lane had set her sights on Lord Hays as a potential suitor for her daughter, despite the obvious age difference. Lord Hays possessed a title, and an estate, both of which could easily forgive the decades existing between them.
As they entered the house, Regan took the opportunity to pull herself away from the group and slip upstairs to check on Katharine. Lord Hays noticed her departure, but Mrs. Lane and her daughter did everything within their power to distract him.
She found Katharine tucked away in her room, reading a book no doubt borrowed from Lord Polmerol's vast library. Her daughter looked up as she entered, a sigh the first thing to leave her mouth before she tucked a bit of ribbon between the pages to mark her place and set the book aside.
"I am sorry I flounced away in such a manner, Mama. But that woman..."
Regan took the seat across from her daughter, a lovely cream-colored armchair that provided a view of the rose garden from the open window. "I fear you will always have to encounter such an attitude, wherever you go. And especially if you continue to align yourself with people like Mr. Winthrop."
Regan waited. She watched Katharine's reaction closely, the rise of color in her cheeks, the way her back stiffened as she shifted slightly forward in her chair.
"I know we've only been here a short while," Regan continued, her fingers plucking at one another while she maintained her calm, motherly tone. "But you have always possessed a tendency to feel very passionate about things you favor." She paused, licked her lips, and forced herself to press forward, no matter the discomfort written across her daughter's face. "Do you... Do you favor Mr. Winthrop?"
Her daughter hesitated. That alone was answer enough. "As you said," she began haltingly. "We've only been here a short time, so I cannot say in such plain terms whether or not I favor him, as you put it. However, I do feel a kinship with him. We share so many of the same interests, and I've never before met a man who does not seek to simply brush off my questions as unimportant because I am merely a woman. He... He speaks to me as if I am his equal, and I have not encountered that in a man - in a gentleman - since... Well, since Papa left us."
It was an answer Regan had feared to receive. But her next question, she knew, might provoke an even more difficult response. "What of Mr. Winthrop's age?"
Katharine blinked rapidly, nonplussed. "I don't know what you mean? What of it?"
Oh, she was going to make this difficult. "I mean, he is obviously older than you. By quite a few years, judging from appearance alone. And you are only seventeen, Katie. Would you... could you be happy with a man who is so much more mature?"
"And why should I not? We are of the same mind on so many subjects. Would you have me set my cap at some young rooster merely because he is nearer to me in age?"
"Not at all! But..." Regan looked down at her hands, at her fingers pulling at the fabric of her skirt, twisting it with all of the frustration currently coursing through her. How could she tell her daughter that she did not want her to marry an older man, when she herself had done the same thing?
"You loved Papa," Katharine countered, as if reading her mother's thoughts.
"Nor did I have as much time with him as I wanted." The confession slipped out, the words carrying only a tinge of the grief that still tainted so many of her thoughts. "If he had been a younger man when we'd married-"
"No." Katharine shook her head. "If he had been a younger man, you might not have married him at all. He would not have been the man you fell in love with. Tell me," she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped, eager as a child. Still a child, Regan thought. Her child, and she always would be, no matter that she was fully grown and now seeking out a life of her own. "The time you had together, would you exchange it for anything else?"
And now her own hesitation, she knew, was her answer. She was certain Katharine knew this, too, but she wouldn't let her daughter win the fight so easily. "The pain, Katie. It is like nothing you can imagine. It is like losing a part of yourself, an injury that can never be fully mended again."
"Mama." Katharine reached out, tugging at her mother's hand until they released the poor, tortured fabric of her skirt. Her daughter's skin was cool against her own, cool and smooth and without any mark or line of advancing age. "I lost my father. The best man I ever knew, will most likely ever know. Do you think you are the only one who carries such a heavy weight of mourning? Do you believe yourself alone in shedding fresh tears at the thought of never being able to see him again? To smell his pipe? The rumble of his voice when he forgot himself and read aloud when he thought no one was listening?"
Regan lowered her head, bringing her daughter's hands up to press against her cheek.
"I am well aware of Mr. Winthrop's age," Katharine said. "But I also cannot pretend there is no other risk aside from that. He could trip on a stone and break his neck. Be trampled by a horse. Choke on an errant bone in a bite of fish. He will live until he dies, until it is his time to die, whether four days from now or forty years."
There were no tears. Regan was thankful for that, that they could speak of such matters and no longer feel as if they had to rend their garments and don sackcloth and ashes every time the subject of her husband - and Katharine's father - arose. "I am your mother," she announced, a strange sad smile toying with the corners of her mouth. "So give me leave to worry over these things. Sometimes I think I cannot help it."
"I know." Katharine pressed forward again until she kissed her mother's forehead. "And for all our talk, Mr. Winthrop may never even make an offer to me. He speaks so much of Egypt and other places that he may not be in a mind to marry at all. I might be nothing more than a willing ear, ready to hear all of his thoughts and theories before he cavorts off to bury himself in some pharaoh's tomb."
They sat together in silence then, enjoying the light breeze let in through the open window, the comfort simply being in one another's company brought to them. And then Katharine sat back again, and she canted her head to one side as she regarded her mother from narrowed eyes.
"But what of you and Lord Hays, hmm?"
Regan blinked, and it wasn't until she remembered to draw in a breath that she realized her mouth was open. "Lord Hays?"
"I am more than certain you came here without any intention of finding another husband. In fact, I cannot imagine you even entertaining the notion of marrying again, but I think you have caught his notice, whether you wish it or not."
"Lord Hays," Regan said again, feeling slightly dumbfounded. All of the time she'd spent worrying that Mr. Cranmer's behavior towards her would be noticed and remarked upon, and here it was Lord Hays responsible for the first tendrils of gossip. "No, I do not wish it. Not at all."
"Well, from what I've heard, Lord Hays is very much in want of a wife. You may have to be careful there."
Katharine's tone was all teasing, but Regan couldn't help but experience a thread of worry. She could be polite to Lord Hays, hold a conversation with him about impersonal subjects and even perhaps dance with him in a large, crowded place. But she had no interest in him as a husband, or even as anything more than a passing acquaintance. The man was...
"I do not think I like him much," Katharine said, interrupting Regan's thoughts. "He seems all that is proper, but there is something in his air, an abundance of confidence I fear does not match his abilities."
"I am inclined to agree with you." Regan smoothed down her wrinkled skirt and stood up. "Or perhaps we are speaking of nothing, seeing as how we have not been here long enough to truly see the shape of anyone's character." A slight lie, that, and one she hoped Katharine would not catch. For hadn't she already begun to pass judgement on everyone she had already encountered? "I'll leave you to your rest," she went on, abandoning the talk of Lord Hays and all other subjects she suddenly felt too tired to discuss. "Before we know it, it will be time to dress for dinner and put ourselves on display for another evening."
"Oh," Katharine sighed, exaggerating her disappointment for dramatic effect. "How is it all to be endured, Mama?"
Regan smiled down at her oldest child. "I am sure your Mr. Winthrop and his talk of medieval Moorish architecture will render it all easier to bear."
A blush stole across Katharine's cheeks. "Ah, well," was all she said, as she splayed her hands apart on her lap. "I am sorry the same cannot be said for your Lord Hays."
"No," Regan said. "Not my Lord Hays. Anything but that."
*************************************
And it's another week! Expect updates again on Wednesday, August 14th and Friday, August 16th!
Thanks to all the readers for their support! You are wonderful!
Quenby Olson