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of the cover, which featured Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, the boys groaned and hurried upstairs to read comic books.
    When Sunday dawned, the snow was already reduced to semi-translucent patches tucked under bushes or shadowy eaves. The Stewards went to church and shared a large midday meal at Jane’s house. That afternoon, Jane and the twins waited for Lachlan to take them to their archery lesson.
    During the fall, Sterling had overseen their lessons, but with the onset of the cold weather, his chauffeur duties had kept him too busy. Jane missed chatting with him on the drive to the Robin Hood Range. Lachlan wasn’t much on small talk.
    â€œWhen spring comes and the guests start renting bicycles again, I’ll take over for Mr. Lachlan,” Sterling had told her in November. “That’ll free Lachlan to focus on your survivalist training.”
    Recalling this conversation, Jane frowned. “I can’t begin to imagine what that means. Will we have to eat bugs? I don’t want to eat bugs. I don’t want to practice archery today either. It’s freezing. I’d much rather build a nice fire, curl up on the sofa, and read.” Muttering crossly to herself, she pulled on her heaviest wool sweater.
    Downstairs, Fitz and Hem were raring to go. The boys, who were never troubled by the cold, had turned their archery lessons into a competition. Hem carried a little notebook in his coat and was secretly keeping score of their shots. At this point, Fitz was more accurate at short distances while Hem had been able to hit a target at sixty meters. Jane was better than both of them, but felt that it was unnecessary to devote much time practicing seeing as she was unlikely to take down an intruder with a bow and arrow.
    She’d just zipped up her parka when Lachlan knocked on the door. “Ready?” He smiled the shy smile that enchanted the majority of Storyton’s female staff.
    â€œI hope this activity is the stress reliever you promised it to be,” Jane said while gesturing at the twins to hop into the cargo bed of the ATV. “With hundreds of guests descending on the resort tomorrow, my mind is all over the place.”
    â€œYou’ll have to focus so intently that everything else will fade away,” Lachlan said. He waited for Jane to climb into the passenger seat and then handed her a thermos. “Very hot, very strong coffee. I wouldn’t drink it now. You could burn yourself if we hit a bump.”
    Jane had no doubt of that. Unlike Sterling, who drove the Gator at a steady pace, Lachlan pushed the vehicle to its maximum speed. He seemed to revel in the bouncy ride. The twins did too. Channeling King Kong or Tarzan, they clung to the Gator’s metal frame and howled wildly.
    Lachlan rarely spoke during the trip to the range. His sea blue eyes stared straight ahead and a lock of his brown hair flapped over his knit cap like a sparrow’s wing. Jane shot him a sidelong glance just as a ray of sun lit the lock, burnishing it reddish gold.
    â€œWere you a redhead when you were little?” she asked, holding on for dear life as he accelerated around a bend in the path.
    Lachlan nodded. “I was.”
    â€œDo you have brothers?” Fitz asked. “Did they have red hair too?”
    Lachlan braked in front of the archery shed and turned to Fitz. “It’s just me and my parents now. But when I was in the army, I had dozens of brothers.” A shadow of pain appeared in his eyes and he quickly glanced away. “Let’s get our gear. Today’s lesson is going to be challenging.”
    For the first thirty minutes of the lesson, Lachlan had them each remove an arrow from their quiver, nock it as quickly as possible, and pull back their bowstrings as though they meant to fire. However, they weren’t allowed to loose their missiles.
    Using a stopwatch to monitor their progress, Lachlan made them repeat the loading maneuver over and over.