The pistol was heavier than it looked.
Mira held it in both hands, arms extended, the barrel wavering slightly as she squinted down the sights at the unfortunate cabbage Daniel had set as her target atop a fence post.
The morning air in Mrs. Willoughby’s mews was cold enough to sting her nose. The horses in their stalls snorted and shifted, hooves clopping on straw, clearly unimpressed with the proceedings.
“Relax your shoulders,” Daniel said behind her. “You’re holding it as if it’s about to bite.”
“It might,” she said.
“Not if you do it first,” he said. “Here.”
He stepped closer.
Too close.
His hands came up, one settling lightly over her own on the grip, the other hovering near her elbow.
“Like this,” he murmured. “Firm, but not rigid. You’re not strangling it.”
“It feels obscene,” she said. “A proper lady should not know which end is which.”
“Proper ladies know far worse things,” he said. “They simply pretend not to. Now. Sight down. Breathe. Don’t jerk the trigger. Squeeze.”
“I hate this,” she muttered.
“I know,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “Then perhaps you will stop suggesting it.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Fire,” he said.
She squeezed.
The pistol bucked.
The sound shattered the stillness with a bang that made her ears ring. The smell of powder rushed up, acrid and sharp. Her wrist jolted. The recoil ran up her arms to her shoulders.
She bit back a curse.
Bits of shredded cabbage rained down from the post.
Daniel whistled. “Direct hit.”
Her heart hammered.
She lowered the pistol slowly.
“I hated that,” she said.
“And yet,” he said, “you did it.”
She turned to look at him.
His hair was mussed from the morning wind; his cravat knotted carelessly. Powder smoke curled faintly in the chill air like breath.
His eyes were very steady.
“Again,” she said.
He blinked. “I thought—”
“If I am to carry this thing,” she said, “I must not fumble with it like a girl with her first fan.”
He smiled, small and, she thought, oddly proud.
“Very well,” he said. “Again.”
They loaded.
He showed her how to measure powder, how much to tamp, how to seat the ball. She fumbled once, dropping a wad of paper with a muttered oath that made him chuckle.
“Who taught you that?” he asked.
“Lady Bennett,” she said. “She does not always realize when she is not alone.”
He laughed outright.
The second shot went wild, nicking the fence and frightening a sparrow from its roost.
“Better to miss high than shoot your own foot,” he said cheerfully.
“Comforting,” she said through gritted teeth.
By the sixth shot, her wrists ached and her ears rang constantly. But the cabbage—or its replacement, a battered turnip—was consistently more ragged.
“You’re a decent shot,” Daniel said. “For someone who hates it.”
“I hate that I need to be,” she said, lowering the pistol. “I hate that this is part of my life now.”
“I hate that I put it there,” he said quietly.
She turned.
He was watching her with an expression she had seen rarely: naked remorse.
“You did not,” she said. “Caine did. Harcourt did. Pell did. Thomas did, in a way, with his letters and his pride. The river did, with its…habit. You merely stood beside me when I realized it.”
He huffed. “You make me sound like a particularly loyal lamppost.”
“You are brighter,” she said.
His lips twitched. “High praise indeed.”
He reached to take the pistol from her.
Their fingers brushed.
The contact—small, through kid and powder residue—sent a ridiculous little shiver up her arm.
He stilled.
“So,” he said lightly, and she could hear the strain beneath the ease, “now you can threaten men with more than accounting errors.”
“I have been quite successful with ledgers so far,” she said. “Perhaps I shall only brandish the pistol if they refuse to be moved by misbalanced sums.”
He laughed.
The sound warmed the cold space between them.
“Do you think badly of me?” she asked suddenly.
He blinked. “For what?”
“For learning this,” she said. “For being willing to…shoot. If necessary.”
He considered.
“No,” he said. “I think…less badly of the world for making you a woman who can.”
“That is a very odd way to phrase approval,” she said.
“It is a very odd situation,” he said.
He stepped back, sliding the pistol into his own coat pocket now, away from her cold fingers.
“We should go in,” he said. “Before Mrs. Willoughby leans out of the window to see what the noise is and has apoplexy.”
“Oh, she already knows,” Mira said. “She sent Sally out to ‘see what those idiots are doing in my mews.’”
On cue, Sally’s head poked around the corner of the stable door.
“Cook says if you blow up the kitchen, she’ll quit,” Sally announced.
“We are nowhere near the kitchen,” Daniel protested.
“She says smoke travels,” Sally said solemnly.
Mira laughed, the sound startling her with its freedom.
Daniel smiled down at her.
For a moment, in the pale, chilly light, with powder on their fingers and echoes in their ears, the world shrank to something almost manageable.
Then Bess’s boy appeared at the far end of the alley, panting, cap askew.
“Mrs. Godwin!” he gasped. “Mr. Ferris! Miss Bess says as how you’re to come quick. They’re loadin’ wagons at Turner’s place.”
Mira’s heart lurched.
“Now?” she said.
“Aye,” the boy said. “Men with Harcourt’s badge. Scramblin’ like rats. She thought you’d want to see.”
Daniel swore under his breath. “Of course. Harcourt’s not waiting for invitations now.”
Mira wiped her powder-blackened fingers on a rag.
“Get my cloak,” she told Sally. “The dark one. And tell Mrs. Willoughby—”
“I’m comin’,” Mrs. Willoughby said, striding out from the kitchen door in a wrapper and a shawl. “Do not bother telling me to stay. If you think I am going to sit and drink chocolate while you let Harcourt sweep his sins into someone else’s warehouse, you are mad.”
“You’ll catch your death,” Daniel said weakly.
“I have been catching my death for twenty years,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “It refuses to stick. Come along. If we move quickly, we can at least *see* where he means to hide things.”
“We cannot confront him,” Daniel warned as they hurried toward the street. “Not there. Not without…more.”
“I am not a complete idiot,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Sometimes I simply play one. We will look. We will listen. We will not fling ourselves under his horses.”
Mira grabbed her cloak from Sally, wrapping it tightly around her shoulders.
The key warmed against her thigh.
“Time, it seems,” she said, “has run faster than we planned.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Then we run with it,” he said.
They went.
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