Season's Feather

Chapter Thirty-Five

Williamson finally found Kate. Tramping through the forest on her own. Hunting like man, alone in the woods. He walked over with an uncertain expression. She was already kneeling over a tree and getting ready to shoot. "Miss Sharma?"

She looked back and shushed him, "Get down!"

He knelt beside her, "Are you quite serious? You cannot just go off like that with your gun. You know your maid is having a terrible time."

"Would you be quiet," Kate sneered.

Williamson nodded to himself, "It is rather like you, leaving everyone behind."

"No one wishes to hear what you think you know about me."

"I do not need to think, I know." Williamson declared, "From the moment I saw you riding alone in that park. It was obvious the rules were meaningless to you."

Kate scoffed, "Oh, you and your rules."

"Perhaps if you had not been wandering again the other morning, we might not have been put in such a difficult situation."

Kate put down her gun and looked at Williamson, "Exactly which difficult situation are you referring to, my lord?"

"Your-" But he stopped himself. He looked at Kate. She was daring him to say it. He could hear Delilah's scoff in his mind. He frowned, "The other morning."

"When I stumbled upon you having a fit of anger."

"After which you stayed in an unchaperoned room."

"To which you stayed in too? You were the one overcome."

"Indeed I was not."

"You then proceeded to approach me. And, the way you looked at me."

Williamson scoffed, "You looked at me!"

"Not the way you did." Kate responded.

"And how exactly did I look?"

Silence fell between the two of them again. Williamson wondered what she might say. Did she know? Did she know the way his anger wrapped around him when he looked at her? Did she know she was the reason he spent so many nights fighting over what both of the Sharma sisters meant to him?

Kate's eyes snapped to the bushes when twigs snapped. She held her gun up, "There is something there," She whispered.

Williamson leaned into her ear, "It'll signify little if you mean to hold your gun in that way."

"I know how to hold a gun." Kate snapped.

Williamson tilted his head, "Evidently not a British one."

He sighed before moving around to try and help her. Kate tried to protest, But his arms were already caging her close, and forcing her movements. He had one hand cupping Kate's on the barrel, and the other under her elbow positioning her properly.

He moved closer, his hand came up around her fingers where the trigger was. His breath coated her ear. He was so close now. His mind was fogging slightly, but he was simply helping her. Nothing more.

The tension increased. That shift made itself known again. Williamson's breath coasted along Kate's neck. She had to repress a shiver.

However, at the sound of men coming, they split quickly. Williamson showed himself first as Anthony walked forward with the rest of the men.

"There you two are!" The viscount called, "You better rejoin us before the rain ends our pursuits."

Williamson shook his head to clear his mind. He knew this hunt was going to end up bad.