Page 47 of The Devil Baron

Her eyebrows lifted with an odd, hopeful gaze. “Truly? You don’t need it?”

“You know what you’re doing with it, so it only makes sense you have one on you.”

She beamed a wide smile down at him that stole his breath away. Truly, it jabbed straight down deep into his lungs and ripped his chest wide open.

To think all it took to seduce her was to give her a blade. He’d been going about this all wrong.

Her hand went to the pup’s head, scuffing his ears as he squirmed to get his nose and paws balanced on the edge of the pouch, but her blue eyes stayed riveted on Rafe. “Thank you.”

He tugged her skirts back into place about her leg and he couldn’t resist dragging the side of his forefinger against her calf. “It may move around a bit, but it should stay in place. The sheathes were crafted specifically for my boots, but it will work.”

He turned back to his horse and mounted, and they took off on the final stretch to Seahorn.

The progress was faster that day, the wind not so bitter. Two hours later, he turned to her, the curiosity he’d been mulling over in his head for hours popping out of his mouth.

“What is in your nightmares?”

“What?” Her face swung to him, her eyebrows cocked high. “I have nightmares?”

“You do. You toss and turn, whimper in your sleep. I assume they are nightmares.”

Her silver blue eyes paused on him for a long second, but then she blinked, shaking her head. “I don’t remember them.”

She was lying. Damn, she was so easy to read.

He wanted to know, but he also wasn’t one to push. He’d find out eventually. Whether Victoria admitted it to herself or not, she was an open book that didn’t know how to close.

Different topic.

“Well then, tell me who taught you to wield a blade? Your skill took me by surprise—as I’m sure it was a shock to those brutes as well.”

She chuckled, genuinely humble. “That credit goes to my stepmother, Jules.”

His head snapped back and a crooked smile came to his face. Unexpected. “Your stepmother?”

She nodded, her eyes twinkling. “And my uncle. And my father. Sloane as well. But my best teacher was Jules.”

“Why?”

“She lived at sea for a while, for a number of years, actually. Which forced her to get good with a blade.”

She didn’t say more about how her stepmother learned to fight, and Rafe got the distinct sense that he wasn’t supposed to inquire further. He chose a different line of questions. “Why was she the best teacher?”

She smiled at the inquiry. “Men are all about brute force, lunges, attacks. That is how my uncle and father taught me. It’s how you fight, as well, I saw. But you all are big men.”

She shifted in her saddle, the reins staying in her left hand as she absentmindedly stroked the velvety ears of the dog. “For us smaller women, we don’t have brute force on our side. So Jules taught me how a woman could be just as effective if she used her limberness and quickness. It’s easier to avoid a blade than to block it if one is weaker. It’s easier to slice than to stab. One just needs to find the right spot to slice.”

“Like the back tendons of the knees.” Rafe nodded. “That is advanced.”

“It’s a weak point. And I have an advantage there because I’m short.”

“Tiny.” He tilted the top of his head toward her.

“Tiny?” She took instant outrage at the comment.

“I believe I could easily toss you into the air if given the chance.”

She coughed, a contorted chuckle escaping. “You’ve considered that?”

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