Page 39 of My Faire Lady

Jeremy beams. “Perhaps you’ll find yourself a bit of beginner’s luck.” He waves a hand and leads us away from the quad. “Let’s go. We don’t have long before the faire opens.”

Scarlet grumbles beneath her breath, and we follow Jeremy around the bend to a section of the faire lined on either side with open-air bars and taverns. In a few hours, bodies will fill this path, stale beer stinging the air.

We stop at a booth, its sides walled off with rough planks of wood. A row of hay bales lines the back wall, each ringed with a white target—the bullseye a crimson red. Scarlet sidles up beside me, and along the counter at my hip, I run my finger over the string of a bow. Splinters pock the curved wood, as if someone whittled it by hand.

Jeremy dips behind the counter and grabs a fistful of feathered arrows. “You’ll get one practice round so Lottie can get a feel of the bow.”

I lift the bow and balance it in my grip. While I have no experience with it, I’ve watched enough movies and read enough books to be at least familiar with one. How hard can it be?

Wrapping my hand around the grip, I nock the arrow and pull the string taut, closing an eye as I aim the tip at the center of the target ten yards in front of me. Scarlet’s attention is a weight, heavy on my back.

Swallowing, I steady my breath and release my hand. The string snaps against my knuckles, and I bite back a grimace as the arrow sails a dozen feet, then unceremoniously drops to the grass.

“That was pitiful,” Scarlet murmurs.

I whirl on her and shove the bow against her chest. “If you’re so great, let’s see it.”

Smirking, she pulls an arrow from Jeremy’s hand and lifts the bow, nocking it as if she’s done it hundreds of times. Before I have a chance to study her posture and hand placement, she snaps back the string and lets the arrow fly. It shoots through the air and buries into the heart of the target, in the center of the bullseye.

She turns to me and lifts a brow. “You were saying?”

“It’s hardly fair, if you’re a professional.” I purse my lips. “We should try something else, like⁠—”

“Knitting?” Her smirk grows, and she sets the bow on the counter. “If you want pointers, Lottie, all you have to do is ask.”

My lips beg to form some retort, some sort of witty insult that would knock her down a peg. But I need her to agree to this. “Fine. Can you show me how to do it?”

She lifts a brow.

I grind my molars together. “Please?”

Jeremy’s eyes dance over us, and Scarlet nods, pleased as she circles around to my back.

“Your stance is all wrong.”

Her hands find my hips, and my breath catches, bottling in my throat.

She shifts me a few inches to the right. “Imagine there’s an invisible line coming from the bullseye. Line your toes up with that, shoulder width apart.”

Despite the gloves and layers of clothes separating our skin, her touch lights a fire against my hips. My mouth dries, and I follow her directions, lining myself up with the target.

“Good.” She presses an arrow into my right palm. “The first time you did it, you pinched the arrow against the string. Instead, you want to hold it between your pointer and middle finger, and hook your remaining fingers around the string.”

Gnawing my lip, I balance the arrow the way she said and lift the bow to shoulder height.

She leans closer, and her breath skims the arch of my ear. Her hand rests on my hip, skittering my pulse, and she lifts the other, cupping my hand on the bow.

She rubs a thumb across the backs of my knuckles.

“Relax your grip,” she whispers against my temple. “You’re not trying to strangle it.”

I relax one finger at a time, distracting myself from the way Scarlet’s breath teases the hair at my nape. Her arm returns to her side, and the one on my waist drops, as if she only now realized it was there.

A breeze twists my hair in front of my face and blocks my vision, but before I have a chance to brush it back, Scarlet lifts a hand and tucks it behind my ear. Her knuckle lingers on the space beneath my earlobe, and a shiver races down my arms.

She presses her palm against my spine. “When you pull the string back, draw your shoulder blades together.”

My pulse races in my ears, and I draw back the string until it’s taut. She rounds to my other side, the bow a wall between us.