An Extraordinary Lord (Lords of the Armory #3) - Anna Harrington Page 0,3

of a lioness stalking its prey.

He stood still and let her circle him, his sword drawn but pointing nonthreateningly at the ground. He followed her path with a glance over his shoulder. “You’ve had significant training, then?”

“I have.” Her boot heels clicked softly against the cobblestones, and every breath she took sent up a cloud of steam on the cold air. “I’ve studied under some of the best fighters in Spain and France.”

“What a coincidence.” He turned his head to glance over his other shoulder, keeping her in sight as she completed her circle. “I’ve killed some of the best fighters in Spain and France.”

She stopped in front of him. “Then you might possibly offer a challenge.”

An amused grin tugged at his lips. Oh, he was enjoying this! “Possibly.”

She dragged her gaze over him one last time. “Until I skewer you.”

“Very possibly,” he returned, deadpan.

Light laughter bubbled from her lips, and the inscrutable mask she wore splintered to reveal the humor beneath, the amused glimmer in her eyes, and the tug of her lips into just the start of a faint smile.

But immediately, her world-weary mask fell back into place, all her emotions once more controlled. What a damn shame, too, because he would have loved to have seen what she looked like with a beaming smile on her face.

“Shall I call off?” She stepped back until they were arm and sword’s distance apart.

He raised his blade in front of his face in salute. “Please do.”

With an edgy smile registering her mounting excitement—the same anticipation he felt pulsing inside himself—she returned the salute. “En garde.”

They took their positions, as if on a refereed piste instead of a slippery cobblestone alley half obscured by thick fog and haze. Their well-practiced stances of seasoned fencers only added to the absurdity of this sparring match. And to the fun of it.

“Prêts?”

“Oh yes,” he drawled. More ready than he’d been for any match in months.

“Allez!”

Instead of charging, she feinted, surprising him by retreating instead of attacking. But then, nearly everything she’d done so far had surprised him. The simple move forced him forward on the offensive, and he obliged by charging her. The clash of steel against steel jarred loudly through the quiet streets and reverberated off the stone buildings. The noise gave the foggy night an otherworldly feel, as if he’d fallen into a bizarre dream.

He pressed forward with testing thrusts of his sword to gauge her skill and study her movements. Damnation if she wasn’t doing the same to him as she continued to fall back in a circling retreat, every parry and deflection a chance to assess how he fought.

She lunged. Her blade pushed his to the side and ran down the steel shaft toward the hilt. But he dodged to the left before she could score such an easy touch.

There would be no blood drawn; both of them were too well controlled to accidentally prick the other. The match would only be won when one knocked the other’s sword to the cobblestones. Which he had no intention of allowing to happen to his.

She was good, he’d admit.

But he was better.

To prove it, he launched a series of thrusts that forced her to turn her dominant side to him, leaving her weaker left side unguarded. A side he exposed with a lightning quick slash of the flat side of his blade to her leather waistcoat. A spank meant to put her in her place.

“So we’re playing like that, are we?” she panted out, her eyes gleaming with unveiled excitement. “All right, then.”

She let loose an offensive of thrusts and slashes that had him parrying her blade from all directions. Then she dropped into a crouch and swung her sword in a wide slash at his lower legs.

He jumped, and the blade passed harmlessly through the air beneath.

“So we’re playing like that, are we?” he repeated. He lunged, catching her blade with a hard slash of his. The strength of the thrust knocked her arm far to the side and forced her to stagger back half a dozen steps to regain her balance and once more find her fighting stance. He leveled a hard look at her. “Then do it.”

With a sound that was half exertion, half pleasure, she ran at him, hacking and slashing in a flurry of movement, not to cut him but to force him to parry each move so that he’d leave himself open to attack. So that each hard and quick thrust forced him to swing slightly