Chapter Three #2
Shame rushed through him, hot and prickly, threatening to destroy any calm he had managed to maintain since seeing her. Sarah. Miss Lockwood.
He hated it. Hated the way people always looked at the stick and not him. Hated the pity that poured from their eyes as they realized he could barely walk without it. Hated the tone of their voice that changed into that sickly sweet bedside manner—
“Well, are you going to teach me, or not?”
Montague blinked. That was not the tone he had been expecting.
Miss Lockwood was looking eager, as though he was the one wasting her time by not teaching her!
It was outrageous! It was insubordination!
It is incredibly attractive, Montague could not help but thinking, forcing away the smile threatening to graze his lips. Did Miss Lockwood know it?
“It is not possible for me to teach you,” he said aloud, mustering a glare.
Miss Lockwood, however, was not cowed by either his words or his expression. She frowned, shaking her head as though she could merely ignore his words, as they did not suit.
“Why not?” she asked, jutting out her chin in a most becoming manner.
Another flicker of desire rushed through Montague, this one deeper and hotter.
Concentrate, man!
The trouble was, that was easier said than done. He had not intended to be anywhere near ladies during his recovery. Doctor Walsingham, Montague thought darkly, had been most specific about that the first time they had met.
But he was mostly recovered. The parts that mattered in that regard had never been injured; he was perfectly able to—
Dear God! Montague swallowed, trying to ignore the delicate elegance of her throat, and dropped his gaze to end whatever thoughts he had been having about Miss Lockwood.
The trouble was, that meant his gaze fell to her breasts, her waist, the way her skirts—
“You will not teach me then?” she said quietly.
Montague swallowed. No, he wanted to say, I could teach you. I could teach you a thousand things, each of them delightful, and none of them anything to do with fencing.
Not that he could say such a thing aloud. The trouble was, what could he say? There were a thousand reasons why he should not even consider such a thing.
Several of them scattered through his mind. She was a woman. A woman, in Oxford!
At least, in a college, Montague thought wryly. There were women in Oxford, and the reason he had assumed Miss Lockwood was a brazen harlot was because he had put out delicate feelers in the past week to see if he could procure one. Only for the night, of course.
But she was a woman within the college, and that in itself was wild. Why, he had heard of Miss Wynn—now the viscountess—who had caused quite a stir, but it was still unusual to see a woman about the place that wasn’t cleaning. If one saw them at all.
He was a duke, and should not be cavorting with ladies of the lower classes. And she was beautiful, Montague thought wretchedly, and likely to distract him.
But the trouble was, there were two reasons he desperately wished to teach Miss Sarah Lockwood fencing, and he could not ignore them.
Firstly, because the money would be useful. Desperately shameful as it was to be a duke in need of funds, Montague could not deny that covering his living expenses here would mean he could retrieve full possession of Caelfall Place in London by the autumn.
And secondly, and far more pressing as his body responded to the woman’s presence, Montague knew he was attracted. Painfully so.
And that meant he could think of nothing he would like to do less than make a fool of himself.
The tender thought was not one he could ignore as he stood, his leg starting to ache and his hand clutching the cane.
It only had to be a moment, just a flicker of concentration, and he would fall. And he could not bear to do that before Miss Lockwood. He would rather die first.
“No,” Montague said firmly.
Miss Lockwood took a step forward. “I do not see why you cannot teach me. I only want to learn for my poetry. I don’t have to be any good.”
Montague winced. “You think I could not teach you?”
It was strange to have his talents criticized in such a way. He had never known himself to have pride in his fencing before; pride was something one had in one’s family, blood, titles, wealth, estates. One’s ability to choose a winner at Ascot.
But one’s fencing?
Only now did Montague realize just how desperately he wanted to impress her. Another reason, he thought, he should absolutely not teach her.
“You’ll upset the other students.”
Miss Lockwood raised an eyebrow. “The other students?”
All too late, Montague realized his mistake. He winced. “You know what I mean.”
“There are no other students, and it does not appear likely that there will be any,” Miss Lockwood said firmly.
“The class was supposed to start twenty minutes ago, Your Grace. Not that I like to remind you that you have wasted twenty minutes of my time, and a quarter of the fee I paid to come here.”
Montague glared. “You will upset—”
“I think it’s you I upset.”
He drew in a hasty breath and tried to look completely unconcerned.
Damn the woman! He had never met anyone so excellent at saying precisely the thing he hoped they would not say. How could she say that, standing there, alone with him?
It appeared the same thought had just crossed Miss Lockwood’s mind, for her cheeks pinked in a most distractingly delicious way. “I-I meant—I only thought—”
“I know what you thought, and I can assure you, you are quite mistaken,” said Montague in the coldest voice he could muster.
Even if she was correct.
“So you will teach me then?” Her voice was warm; not pleading, but encouraging.
Most distracting.
Montague wished to goodness he could sit, attempt to consider precisely how to get rid of this woman who seemed to have nothing better to do than argue.
Did she not have…well, obligations? Appointments? Invitations?
Montague’s stomach lurched in an agony of envy and regret. Suitors?
“I have no wish to teach you,” he said aloud, biding his time before he would have to decide irrevocably one way or the other.
Miss Lockwood laughed softly. “That is self-evident, as you so beautifully put it. But the trouble is, Your Grace, I am still standing here wanting to learn, and you have not thrown me out. I can only assume that deep down, you want to teach me.”
Montague was about to retort he had never heard anything so foolish in all his life, but he was not a liar by nature.
She was right. Oh, he wanted to teach her to kiss, to whimper, to moan, to shiver under his touch. Fencing was not on his mind at all.
He glared at the tantalizing woman. What did she think she was doing, coming here, attracting him like this? Like he was a common rake who could not control his urges?
It was only because, he told himself firmly, he had been without a woman in almost a year. That was all. If he had managed to service himself adequately with a woman of the night, he could have stridden away from this woman and not looked back.
His gaze caught hers and a flash of warmth engulfed him. As it was…
“Your Grace?”
“Fine!” snapped Montague, pushed beyond all endurance. He would regret this, he knew it, but there was nothing for it. “Fine! I will teach you, Goddammit.”
Miss Lockwood did not seem affronted by his ill manner or his bad language. Quite to the contrary, a smile swept across her face. “You will?”
Montague sighed. “I must be mad, but yes. I will teach you. But not today.”
Her face fell. “And why not?”
“Because the lessons I had planned were designed for those who already had a basic understanding of the art—”
“The art?”
Montague hesitated. He had not considered himself intriguing, but the beautiful woman had stepped toward him, eyes wide. “Yes. Yes, the art of fencing. I will have to devise new lessons, new methods to teach a woman who knows nothing.”
He had not intended it as a barb, but he saw it land as one. The pain across the beautiful Miss Lockwood’s face caused a corresponding twist of pain in his own chest.
“And you won’t be able to keep up,” Montague warned, wondering whether he could convince her to change her mind. “Better to quit now.”
Miss Lockwood grinned as she walked past him. Montague breathed in just a moment of her, a sudden sense of honey and rosemary, and she was by the door.
“The provost will send me word of when you wish to begin,” Miss Lockwood said, her bright eyes fixed on him. “But I warn you, I am determined. After all, they say the pen is mightier than the sword.”