Page 55 of To Love A Spy
Her brows rose. “Two?”
“Bailin knows the basic moves. We sometimes drill together. Solitary practice is all very well, but there is nothing quite like crossing swords with a real opponent.”
“Quite right,” she murmured.
The marquess turned his back and began to wipe the grit from the grip of his sword.
Impelled by some mystical, Merlin force, Valencia suddenly rose and took up the other one.
Swoosh. Light as a feather in her hand, the sliver of steel cut through the air with a lethal whisper.
Lynsley looked around. “Valencia, I think?—”
His eyes widened as she started to undo the fastenings of her dress.
“Don’t look so shocked, Thomas,” she drawled. “I don’t intend to fight bare-chested, like the Amazons. I wore a shirt and breeches beneath these cursed flounces.”
“I should hope not,” he said dryly, quickly recovering his composure. “They were reputed to have chopped off one breast in order to wield a bow and arrow more efficiently. A noblesacrifice on their part, but it would be a pity to destroy the perfect symmetry of your form.”
Heat flushed her face as she kicked aside her skirts. “Though perhaps a flaunting of flesh would serve as a useful distraction. All is fair in love and war.”
He gave a flashing salute. “So it is.”
Forcing her eyes away from the tantalizing peek of tanned skin and tawny curls showing beneath his shirt, Valencia flexed her sword. Memories of her Merlin training took hold, and of their own accord, her feet slid and assumed theen gardestance.
“Come, I am ready for you to test my mettle,” she said.
Lynsley set a hand on his hip. “The days of handing out grades are long gone, Valencia. You have nothing to prove to me.”
“No? Perhaps not in the classroom, but surely you don’t imagine that I can let a taunt to the honor of my sister Merlins pass without putting up a fight?” she challenged. “Besides, aren’t you just a little curious as to how good a teacher Da Rimini really is?”
The corners of his mouth twitched ever so slightly. “Put that way, it would be ungentlemanly of me to refuse.”
“And you are, of course, the consummate gentleman.”
His steel kissed up against hers. “One acquires the skills early on, seeing as the training starts at birth.”
“The lessons learned as a child are ingrained,” she agreed. Drawing her blade upward, she reversed her position of attack, forcing him back a step. “They come naturally, without thinking.”
“As opposed to ones we pick up later in life?”
“You would know better than I.”
The marquess countered her move with effortless ease, his boots dancing over the uneven ground as if it were polished parquet.
“After all,” she murmured, parrying his probing point. “You have far more experience in the real world.”
Lynsley spun away from her riposte with deceptive grace. “You aren’t a raw schoolgirl anymore, Valencia. I daresay you’ve seen more than your share of life’s sordid realities.”
She nearly missed the subtle flick of his wrist and the deadly quick thrust of his blade.Damn.Thank god her reflexes were still sharp. Darting back at the last instant, she managed to deflect the blow.
“I’m surprised that Da Rimini teaches abotta drittaas a defensive maneuver,” remarked Lynsley. His light linen shirt clung to the contours of his shoulders, the lean, lithe stretch of his swordplay accentuating his tapered waist and snug buckskins. The soft leather looked molded to his muscular thighs, showing every?—
No, she must keep her eyes on the blade of tempered steel.
“He didn’t,” she countered. “Rather, he taught us to improvise, to learn how to turn a weakness into a strength.”
“Then perhaps the wily old wolf is worth the obscene salary he demands of me.”
