Chapter 16
The doors to Westvale House’s upper gallery flew open at precisely noon.
Jasper Deverell had faced angry husbands, suspicious brothers, and insulted opera singers, but none of them had ever entered a room with quite the same promise of violence as Miss Charlotte Tolliver.
He had been leaning against a marble column in an attitude of carefully arranged indifference, but at the sight of her, he very nearly forgot to be indifferent.
Good God.
Jasper pushed away from the column and bowed. “You are punctual.”
She raised her brows. “You are overdressed.”
He glanced down at his exquisitely tied cravat, embroidered waistcoat, and perfectly polished Hessians. “I was not aware one could be overdressed for mortal combat.”
“One can, if one looks as though he has come to make love to a looking glass.”
From the corner, the physician made a small, strangled sound.
The poor man was elderly and visibly regretting whatever fee had induced him to attend.
He sat upon a cane-backed chair with his leather case clutched to his knees, as though it alone might protect him from aristocratic folly.
“Er,” he ventured, clearing his throat, “I was not aware a lady would be—”
He was silenced as Miss Tolliver drew her sabre and glared at him. She lifted it to the light, testing its balance with one gloved hand.
The physician gulped, and Jasper could not blame him. “Perhaps I ought to begin the count—?”
“No,” said Miss Tolliver pleasantly.
The physician blinked and looked to Jasper. “No?”
“No, thank you, doctor,” she said, her tone so coolly agreeable that Jasper felt his mouth tug despite himself.
He was beginning to learn that Miss Tolliver was most dangerous when she sounded most polite.
“Unless you are here to take my place and cross blades with Mr Deverell yourself, I believe your services are premature. You are not required here.”
The man looked at the sabre, then back at Jasper—and then, with evident misgiving, back at the sabre. “I was told there might be injury.”
“There may be,” Miss Tolliver conceded. “And if either of us begins to bleed in any meaningful fashion, we shall be certain to summon you from downstairs.”
Jasper offered him a sympathetic shrug. “She does tend to be decisive.”
There was a brief silence as the physician opened and closed his mouth several times, apparently attempting to summon a protest.
“I shall pay you double,” Jasper promised.
The doctor rose with some difficulty, gathered his bag, and shuffled towards the door. “Should you require me,” he muttered, “I shall be downstairs. Most likely drinking.”
Miss Tolliver gave him a cheery little wave. “Do fortify yourself.”
The grand doors closed behind him, and Jasper looked back at Miss Tolliver with the uncomfortable sensation that some essential part of his good sense had abandoned him along with the physician.
She stood opposite him, sabre in hand, and unholy glee in her eyes.
Good God, he thought for the second time.
He had known women made beautiful by candlelight, by diamonds, by laughter, by nakedness.
He had never before seen a woman made quite so devastating by the prospect of violence.
It was, without question, the most erotic thing he had ever witnessed in daylight.
His throat went dry. “We must agree upon the terms,” he said, more hoarsely than he would’ve liked.
Miss Tolliver tilted her head, one brow lifting in polite inquiry. “First to disarm?”
“Agreed. No deliberate blood.”
“Unless it is yours.”
He laughed under his breath. “You are in a mood today, Miss Tolliver.”
“Indeed,” she said, raising her sabre. “I am always in a mood.”
He drew his blade in turn, the steel catching a narrow line of sunlight as it left the scabbard.
His heart had begun to beat too fast, which was inconvenient, for his thoughts ought to have been occupied with distance, line, wrist, and footwork.
Instead, they had become ensnared by the red slash of colour on her lips. The vixen!
Jasper cleared his throat, and chastised himself, because—idiot that he was—he very much wanted to see what she would ask of him if she won. God help him.
“Very well,” he murmured, lifting his sabre into guard. “Mind your distance. These are not toys.”
“I had observed as much.”
“En garde.”
Miss Tolliver moved first. She came forward by inches, light upon the balls of her feet, her left hand lifted behind her for balance. There was no smile upon her face now.
Jasper’s amusement thinned. Ah. She was skilled, indeed.
He shifted to meet her, keeping the measure between them. The first touch of steel was a test; her blade gliding against his, seeking the line, and he turned his wrist to carry it aside.
A neat attack followed at once, a cutting motion towards his outside arm. He parried with the forte of his blade and gave ground, sliding over the bare boards. “You’re quick,” he said.
“Thank you,” she replied, advancing again. “I am also left-handed.”
He faltered for the smallest instant. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh,” she said sweetly, “did I forget to mention that?”
Her next cut came from the other line, sharp and low enough to make him retreat rather than risk a foolish counter. He parried, recovered, and felt the impact run through his wrist.
“You truly are hell-bent on humiliating me,” he muttered.
“Not humiliating,” she said airily, advancing again. “Correcting. Perhaps, unseating. You have long been too comfortable on your pedestal.”
He barked a breathless laugh. “Is that what this is? A public service?”
“Precisely. My contribution to the social order.”
She pressed him then—one cut to the arm, another to the shoulder, a quick feint that forced him to bring his guard across too soon.
Jasper gave ground, not because he was beaten, he told himself, but because she was attacking with a live blade and he had no intention of explaining to Lord Tolliver why his daughter had been opened from sleeve to elbow before luncheon.
Still, damn her, she was good. Too eager, perhaps, and too inclined to chase the advantage. But fast. Clever. Utterly without fear.
He caught her next cut, turned it aside, and answered with a short attack of his own—not to her body, never that, but towards her blade hand. She withdrew it just in time, and his sabre passed close enough to stir the cuff of her sleeve.
Her eyes flashed. “Careful, Mr Deverell.”
He smiled tauntingly, and she came in again.
This time he did not retreat. He let her think he would, shifting his weight as though yielding ground, and then stepped off the line.
Her blade passed where his shoulder had been.
Jasper caught it with his own, not edge to edge but sliding along the stronger part of his blade, and turned her attack wide.
Miss Tolliver recovered beautifully, damn her, pivoting away before he could take advantage. Her curls had begun to escape their pins; one lay dark against her jaw. Her breath came faster now, and so did his.
“Do you yield?” she asked, though she was smiling.
“Not when I am so handsomely entertained.”
“Pity. I rather wanted to see what you look like when surrendering.”
“Would you like me on my knees again, Miss Tolliver?”
“I shall let you choose the manner of your defeat.”
He met her eye squarely. “Then I must disappoint you, Miss Tolliver.”
She struck again, quicker this time, aiming for his guard rather than his person. It was a mistake.
Jasper caught the stroke, then twisted his wrist sharply. Her grip held for a moment—she was admirably strong and stubborn—then his blade slid against hers, lifted, and wrenched the sabre from her hand.
It struck the boards and skated away in a bright, ringing arc. Miss Tolliver froze.
Jasper brought the point of his blade to hover an inch beneath her chin. His other hand caught her wrist lightly. “Do you yield?” he asked.
She inhaled sharply. Colour burnt high in her cheeks. Her lips, painted the colour of pomegranate sin, were parted. She was not frightened. Good God, no. She looked furious, breathless, and alive with the humiliation of being beaten.
Jasper’s grip tightened by the smallest degree. “You wished to know what I looked like surrendering,” he said softly. “But I confess, Miss Tolliver, I am rather more curious to see what you look like defeated.”
For a moment, he thought she might kick him.
Then she lifted her chin, carefully, because his blade was still there. “I yield.”
God help him. He had won, and by every rule of their absurd, reckless, magnificent little engagement, he might now ask for anything. Anything at all.
The image arrived with such force that Jasper nearly forgot the blade in his hand.
He could command her to her knees and ask her to take him in her mouth, there in the gallery, with sunlight spilling across the floor and her fallen sabre lying useless at their feet.
He could lay her back against the shrouded piano, order her to unfasten those ridiculous trousers, and bury himself inside her until the only sounds in the room were the creak of polished wood, the ragged pull of his own breath, and Charlotte Tolliver’s moans against his throat.
The thought was enough to make every rational notion in his head stagger like a drunkard in a lane.
“I am not unaware of my rights,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I have won, and by the terms we agreed, I am entitled to name my forfeit.”
Her lips parted, and it was enough to send a surge of heat rushing through his veins. He lowered the sabre at last, though he did not step away. “I wonder what you think I shall ask for.”
Her eyes flared, and that, too, made his pulse surge. It was not fear, but anticipation. Miss Tolliver had not the good sense to be frightened of him, which was one of the many reasons he was doomed. “Perhaps you are remembering your own conduct when victory was yours.”
Her colour deepened.
Jasper’s mouth curved. “You were not, as I recall, a model of restraint. So you see,” he said softly, “I cannot in good conscience allow you to pretend innocence now. Your forfeit was not chaste, Miss Tolliver. It was a wicked little exercise in making a man obey and please you.”
He let his gaze wander, slowly enough to be unforgivable: from her mouth to the high line of her throat, to the rise and fall of her breath beneath the open edge of her riding jacket, to those borrowed breeches clinging to her hips and thighs.
“I might ask you to kneel,” he said, very softly.
“Here. Now. With your hands behind your back and that proud mouth of yours put to a purpose altogether less argumentative.”
God help him, she did not move, but blinked up at him beneath dark lashes.
“I might ask you to unfasten every button,” he continued, his voice roughening.
“Your jacket. Your shirt. Those damned trousers. I might have you stand before me in this gallery, in this merciless light, and have you touch yourself. Only your hands, Miss Tolliver, and my instructions.”
Jasper leant closer, until his mouth hovered near hers. “And when you could no longer bear it, I might come to you. I might press you against that wall and take you as thoroughly as you have been tempting me to do since the moment you walked into this room with murder in your eyes.”
Her eyes were dark now, furious and wanting and fixed upon his.
Jasper stepped back before he became the sort of man he had always despised. “Yes,” he said softly. “I could ask for all that. But I shall not.”