“I’d like to remind you,” he said, looking first at Chloe, then at Grace. “This is the final round of our archery competition today—”
A mosquito buzzed around Chloe’s eyes. She snapped her eyelids closed for a minute, brushed it away, and when she opened them again, she accidental y looked straight at Sebastian, who winked and smiled. At least, it looked like he winked. Anyway, he was smiling—at her. He had this way, even with the gorgeous Grace and al uring Julia around, of making her feel as if she were the one. The only one. She swung her lancewood bow at her side.
“Ahem . . .” The butler cleared his throat. “The winner of today’s competition wil not only earn fifteen Accomplishment Points, but wil also win an exclusive outing with Mr. Wrightman. Let the games begin.” He raised his arm for the competition to continue.
Chloe’s hands shook.
Grace flashed her white teeth in a fake smile, and Chloe noticed that her teeth somehow seemed whiter than they’d been yesterday. “Another excursion with Mr. Wrightman? I’l shoot for that.” Grace pul ed her bowstring back, and with a snap she nailed it, another bul ’s-eye.
Chloe’s hands began to sweat in her suede gloves.
“Miss Parker, may I ask you a question?” Henry bowed in her direction. Mrs. Crescent was standing right by his side.
Chloe didn’t want to get sidetracked by Henry. Not now. “We can talk after the meet, I’m sure, Mr. Wrightman.” She curtsied to soften the blow of her refusal.
“This might help you, Miss Parker. Come over here with us,” Henry said. He guided her toward the lemonade table and handed her a glassful.
Her hands shook and when she took a sip, the glass clinked against her teeth. Henry politely ignored this blooper, but the camera got it. She took a big gulp, thinking that what she real y needed at the moment was a vodka lemonade.
Henry looked her straight in the eye, as if she had a speck of dirt or something in it. “Miss Parker, do you wear glasses back home?”
She almost sprayed her lemonade al over him. “What?!” She wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin from the table. “Um, I mean, excuse me. Pray tel , what kind of question is that?”
Henry took off his glasses and looked into her eyes while Mrs. Crescent and even Fifi seemed to stare at her. “Have you had your eyesight tested recently?”
Chloe laughed. “Are you saying I’m blind, Mr. Wrightman?”
“It’s your shot, Miss Parker,” Grace cal ed as she slipped her arrows into her tin quiver with a loud
Chloe put her hands on her hips. “I can see perfectly, thank you very much.” She could see that Sebastian was standing in the background, his arms folded and his brow furrowed as he watched her once again engaged in conversation with Henry.
Mrs. Crescent tapped Chloe’s cap-sleeved shoulder. “Henry has observed, dear—you squint every time you shoot.”
She narrowed her eyes at Henry. What was he trying to do? Break her concentration?
Her thought was interrupted by the butler, who stepped in front of the camera again. “Miss Parker, you must take your turn now. Or do you forfeit?”
The nerve! A lady would never articulate what Chloe was thinking, so she spun away from the lemonade table, plucked a wooden arrow from her tin quiver, grabbed the green velvet grip, raised her bow arm, and kept it locked. Slowly, she drew the twisted linen string back until her thumb hit her jawbone and her index finger almost touched the corner of her pursed lips and—she squinted. There. Now she saw the center circle clearly. She aimed, held her breath, and thought al those archery lessons at summer camp al those years ago had to pay off. She released the arrow but kept her shooting position until she heard the arrow hit the target.
Grace mouthed something to Sebastian from across the field. Sebastian mouthed something back, but Chloe had trouble seeing his lips from a distance. Was Henry right? She needed glasses? Was this an approaching-forty thing that had crept up on her so gradual y she hardly noticed?
She had five arrows left in her quiver. She turned to Henry, who was sitting on the edge of his chair.
“Mr. Wrightman—Henry?” was al she said, and he came right over.
He didn’t say a word. He took off his very clunky nineteenth-century spectacles, with lenses almost as thick as quizzing glasses. A chunk of his hair fel into his light brown eye and he swished it away. He wiped the lenses clean with his cravat and slid the glasses onto her nose as if he were sliding an engagement ring onto her finger. At first she saw nothing but a blur, and she raised her hand to take them off, but then, suddenly, she saw it clearly: the red circle in the middle, the outer rings . . . Wait—now she was seeing the individual leaves on the trees instead of green clumps. She saw peonies in the gardens rather than a blur of pink. Even from this distance, she saw Sebastian’s watch fob dangling from his pants!
She took her stance, held her breath, and shot. Bul ’s-eye! She breathed in.
“You’l need five more of those,” Grace mumbled, leaning nonchalantly on her bow as if it were a streetlamp.
Four bul ’s-eyes later, Sebastian, Henry, and Mrs. Crescent clapped and stood. Grace slung her arrow case over her shoulder and folded her arms. Julia folded her arms, too, and drummed her fingers on her taut biceps.
Chloe held the last wooden arrow in her gloved hand. She visualized herself as Cupid, with curly hair and wings as she nocked the arrow in the center of her bowstring and readied herself to take aim, but Grace chose that moment to step none too gently on Chloe’s foot, and Chloe’s fingers released, even though she hadn’t even raised her bow arm. The arrow spun from her bow, as if in slo-mo, and spiraled toward Henry.
Chloe squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Cupid fantasies or not, she certainly hadn’t wanted to shoot an
