Page 85 of The Rakehell of Roth
“You speak well for a groom.” He advanced with a short stab of his rapier. “Who are you?”
Quick as a snake, he lurched forward and it took all her strength to jump out of the way. Despite his wound, he kept coming, and once more, Isobel found herself on the defensive. There was something else driving the earl now—a desperate need to find out who she was. And she couldn’t let that happen. Narrowing her focus, she fell back on the lessons from her fencing master, letting her body remember the movements.
Parry, strike, shift. Repeat.
“You fence well for a groom, too,” he panted.
“I do a lot of things well, Lord Beaumont.”
Suddenly, the earl pulled back, his face going hard, and Isobel wanted to kick herself for using his old address. Something in the way she’d said it, some minor inflection must have caught his interest, set off a memory. He stared at her. “Iknowyou.”
“I hate to disappoint,” she replied. “But you don’t and you never have.”
“Show yourself.”
Isobel smiled beneath her mask. “No.”
Taking advantage of his hesitation, she darted in, bringing her sword down onto the hand that held his rapier. It clattered to the clay-hardened grit of the street, and she used the advantage to drive hers toward him, the tip of it pressing into his belly. “Yield,” she commanded.
In a fit of rage, he reached forward and ripped off the swatch of fabric covering her face. Isobel saw the moment he recognized her, even dressed as she was with dirt caked into her skin, his eyes going wide with incredulity.“You!”
Thankfully, her back was to the others, but she still couldn’t resist replying. “Me,” she said in a low voice. “I believe my sister told you once,Edmund, no means no. Surely a man of your intelligence would have learned that lesson by now.”
His eyes glittered with lust and malice. “When we get to Italy, I’m going to punish you in ways you can’t imagine, little one.”
“I’m not sure you understand your predicament here.”
She wasn’t prepared for him to push against the blade and then knock it to the side. Its sharp edges tore through the fabric of his coat, but he paid it no mind. Before he could get a hand on her, Isobel did the only thing she could—she let the sword clatter to the ground, grasped his shoulders for purchase, and then brought her knee up as hard as she could between his legs. He fell back like a sack of shit, cupping his privates and howling.
“Iz, did he get you?” Winter said from behind, and Isobel braced herself.
She drew a breath, not knowing how he was going to respond. Likely, it would not be pleasant, given the danger she’d placed herself in. Not that it was any different for Iz, but the male sex tended to view defending female helplessness as a measure of their own masculinity. It didn’t matter that she could fight or shoot as well as any man. She was a woman and by default, delicate. Hogwash, if you asked her, but such was the way of their world.
But before she could quite drum up the courage to turn around and face him, her eyes met Vittorina’s, who was standing off to the side in Creighton’s grasp. The woman goggled, her mouth falling open in disbelief and then reforming into a hateful sneer. She screamed like a banshee, tearing out of the porter’s hold and sprinting toward Isobel, fury in her gaze.
“You’ve ruined everything!” she shrieked. “You stupid bitch!”
Isobel sucked in a breath, planted her feet, and waited until Vittorina was in range before drawing her arm back and letting a full-on punch fly. It connected right in the woman’s jaw. For a moment, they stared at each other in silence and then Vittorina’s eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled. Isobel moved to stand over her, the pain in her fingers unbearable, but damned if she would let an inkling of it show.
“I’m not spineless,” she said. “And I’m not stupid.”
“Fucking hell…Isobel?”
She swallowed hard and rotated in slow motion, meeting the incredulous eyes of her husband. Fury was quick to light their silver depths as recognition and understanding hit, but she bit her lip and stood her ground. “There’s a good explanation, Winter, I promise.”
“There better be,” he said, “because there’s a good chance I’m going to put you over my sodding knee.”
Even covered in blood and filth and God knew what else, the sound of his husky voice made every nerve-ending in her body come alive. Isobel gave him a cheeky grin. “Promise?”
As his eyes darkened from silver to slate and a growl broke from his chest, it occurred to Isobel that it might not be the right time to provoke the beast.
Too late.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Avoid coitus on a staircase. Notwithstanding the ludicrous speculation of having a child born of such a union with a crooked back, the bodily injuries are not worth the trouble. Do the deed outside instead.
– Lady Darcy
