Free Guarded Heart by Jennifer Blake Page B

could he have for touching her except, possibly, to unsettle her?
    The leather-wrapped hilt of the foil and its metal guard felt cold as she took it up, and the blunted blade was weightier than she recalled. However, she would not show it, but moved to her place on the piste with as much impassivity as the man who joined her there. Even as she stepped on the canvas strip, a troublesome doubt unfurled inside her. Was it possible she had miscalculated?
    Ariadne turned to face the sword master. He swept up his blade in salute and down again, his eyes a watchful flicker behind his mask. She followed suit, then waited with her foil tip resting on the strip for what might come next.
    â€œWe will begin,” he said, “with a series of taps at the tips of our two blades, taps as soft as a lover’s sigh, as tentative as a first kiss. It will be a gentle exploration of intentions and desires, no kind of assault. You understand?”
    â€œI believe so.”
    â€œGood,” he replied, his voice like warm honey; then he continued without change, “En garde.”
    She reached out to cross his foil tip with hers. Scarcely had they touched when he gave the office to begin. They exchanged the beats he had described for several seconds, their blades chiming together in measured rhythm as polite and steady as a metronome. Abruptly, he launched into an advance that pushed her blade aside, sliding past it to immediately touch her chest padding. It was a careful nudge, one that barely curved his blade, but she did not make the mistake of believing it was not rigorously planned.
    â€œTouché,” she said, her gaze level.
    â€œExcellent,” he said with a nod. “To acknowledge a touch is always a matter of honor. A fencer should never call out his own claim to a touch made upon his opponent for that’s vainglory. Nor should he inquire about one that has not been acknowledged. If you should happen to concede a touch I don’t believe is valid, I will decline credit for it by saying pas de touché, not a touch.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œWe begin again. This time, you will advance.”
    She did as he directed, but her small foray was instantly flicked aside so she defended once more. Again and yet again they went through the movements while their blades chimed and clanked until, abruptly, he swirled into a riposte and she felt the thud of his buttoned point against her padding again.
    â€œTouché.” She had to unclench her teeth to make the acknowledgement.
    â€œJust so. Again.” He waited only until she had raised her foil before he continued. “Fencing, you should realize, can be like a silent conversation, one in which you come to know your opponent. You sense the strength of his wrist, the power of his will, the extent of his training, his physical condition, whether he views himself as invincible or merely competent. These things can all affect the end of a phrase d’armes. ”
    â€œYes, I see.” Insofar as she could tell his strength was unyielding and his physical condition superb if the disturbingly well-oiled flexing of the muscles in his shoulders and thighs was any indication. She was no judge of his training but thought he most certainly had no doubt of his invincibility. The almost negligent ease with which he controlled the passage between them was beyond annoying, well beyond.
    â€œOr consider it in the light of a flirtation,” he went on, his voice lilting above the measured tap and clack of the blades. “Just as you would not reveal your every feeling to a suitor, it’s bad strategy to permit that advantage to an opponent. Hold something of yourself in reserve so he is left guessing. Allow him to wonder, to doubt, to feel that he has no chance.”
    The image he conjured up was disturbing, while some tender current within the deep timbre of his voice sent a shiver along her arm. It seemed best to put an end to that. “And