Chapter 13 #3
Kiddell leaned his sword tip on his boot, watching with interest as Dante showed Cerys what he meant, moving her body as he wished her to move. She could barely see through the veil that suddenly clouded her vision.
Dante was touching her. Touching her. Her being could take in no other information but that.
“Attack from on high,” he murmured in her ear. “Point your sword downward. He will have to raise his arm to block you. That will leave him open.”
“Like this?” She lifted her arm a fraction.
“No. Higher.” His hand came to her elbow, lifting, and there it was again, his hand on her. She gloried in the sensations that rushed through her body. It was like starlings taking flight, a whirl of chattering joy, and with it a heady rush of being lifted off her feet.
“Kiddell.” Dante frowned at him. “Your defense.”
“Wouldn’t you think,” Dorsey said mildly, “it should be time for breakfast? Andover certainly isn’t stingy about his table. I’m for a kipper or three, if they have them. Kiddell?”
Kiddell rolled out his shoulders. “I do believe I’m done for the morning. I’ve got my moves down pat.”
“The rest of you,” Dorsey said to the boys. “On your way, then. We’ll let these two have at it.”
“Have at it,” Meek said, climbing to his feet.
Fred grinned and followed. “I’m for sausages. Or a nice thick rasher of bacon.”
“Hog,” Meek said, and they were gone, leaving Cerys and Dante alone in the echoing room.
Dante released her hips and stepped back. “Let the cozening begin.”
“No,” she said.
No, he could not step away from her. No, he could not put back up that guard. She wanted him close to her, unguarded. She wanted to know the man inside that carefully constructed shell.
She pressed the button of her foil against his broad chest. “Fight me.”
“I am not going to fight with you.” His eyes burned.
“Teach me, then. I don’t know the Italian style.” He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t simply walk away. She wanted him beside her, touching her.
She wanted him holding her, surrounding her. But she didn’t know if he wanted that, too.
He’d wanted it with Bathsheba Baeccon.
He held her gaze, and she couldn’t read his eyes. The man was a master of the inscrutable. He’d make a terrible actor.
“Haven’t you gotten what you wanted from me already?”
No, not nearly enough. And even if she had, she’d still want more. Cerys pressed the button more firmly against his shoulder. As anyone who knew her could tell him, Cerys Van Der Welle Evans was nothing if not stubborn. It was her defining characteristic. Some might say her fatal flaw.
“I haven’t seen designs for a theater yet, inside and out. Perhaps we could meet later in the library and discuss the matter. Dorsey has some ideas.”
“And you have been appointed to deliver them to me.” An edge to his tone. He was remembering, perhaps, how Dorsey had instructed her to haggle down his price. Flaunt her bosoms if need be.
“You could deal with Dorsey, if you’d rather, but I am prettier. And you might tease another kiss out of me, if you asked nicely. En garde.”
His eyes flared and he fumbled his foil. She lunged as he had shown her, giving him very little time to prepare, but he parried high and turned her sword away. He was strong.
She twirled her wrist at him. “Teach me that move.”
“It’s a simple one.” He walked her through it. “You’ve told me what you want for the front porch and in the proscenium, but little else.”
“Do you have anything you’d recommend?” She tried the move again, and he parried again. She fell back.
He stepped to the side, making her shift her stance. “How many boxes?”
“As many as will fit. Three tiers, at least. But not too small and crowded. And with partitions, like the old Covent Garden had.”
He attacked, signaling the move, and she parried as he had taught her. He was much stronger than Kiddell, but unlike Kiddell, who meant to demonstrate his prowess, Dante was holding himself in check.
“Now try for the other shoulder. Gallery?”
“Of course. Upper and lower.”
He blocked her as she lunged, a quick tilt of his elbow. He was good at this. “Two entrances?”
“At least. One for the carriages, and one for the foot traffic. It would be nice to design a drive where the carriage line isn’t stretched for miles, but I wouldn’t know what that would look like.”
“I’ll give it some thought. Watch my hand, I’m coming in low. Good,” he approved as she parried in time, and his brief smile lit a candle in her chest. She loved approval—it was another flaw—but his, in particular, she had a sudden craving for.
He stepped to the side again, circling her. She shifted to face him. She liked being the focus of his attention. She liked when he was the focus of hers.
She wondered if he wanted to kiss her again. Could she make him want to?
“Covent Garden was built like a horseshoe, which was good for the sound.” He studied her, sword raised, appraising her stance. “I’ll design something like that for you.”
“I wonder what the new theater looks like, after the rebuilding.”
He raised his brows and flicked his sword out. She met it with her own. “Did you visit the old Covent Garden, before the fire?”
“Yes, several times.”
“Did you act there?”
She laughed. “No. The plays I saw gave me the thought that I might like to act, I grant you. But I was always a spectator. I wonder if Kemble would even hire me for a season. He’ll have his pick of much more seasoned performers.”
“Why the stage?” he asked, watching her still. She had his complete, undivided attention. It was exhilarating.
She made a desultory thrust, thinking. He turned her foil away easily.
“I wanted to try something entirely new. That was first and foremost, or at least, that was the excuse I gave my mother.” She thrust from another direction, and once more he parried, matching his strength to hers.
“I wanted adventure. New experiences. A chance to see the world.” She withdrew to her guard stance.
“I wonder if what I really wanted was to know if the world would see me back.”
His eyelids flickered, and his mouth turned up on one side, that slanted smile she was beginning to love the sight of. It was hard to move him, impossible to amuse him. The smallest of smiles from him was a treasure.
“And does it?” he asked. “See you.”
She lifted her foil and stared at the blade instead of him. “Not really. They see the role. My value is how much I please or beguile the audience. My worth lies in how much I can bring to the company.”
“Which is why you have determined to bring them a theater.”
She shrugged, pushing away the worry that bit into her. What did she mean, really, in the vast scale of things? In the company, actors might join or leave all the time. No one expected this to be her life. With her family—of course she had a place there. She had her roles there, too.
And what did she mean to Dante? No more than an irritant, perhaps, like sand in his shoe, or a fancy that would pass with the season. A shield he was wearing so Bathsheba Baeccon could not sink her claws back into him.
She fell into her stance. The action gave her a way to focus her restlessness. “I would like to do again what we did before. Explore Cheltenham and look at some of the other buildings. I would like to see what you would suggest for our designs.”
Abruptly he lowered his foil, button pointing at the floor. His face flickered, as if an emotion wanted to bloom there, and he’d caught and contained it. “I could show you my house.”
“The one you are building?”
“Yes. Outside of town, toward Charleton Kings. It isn’t finished yet, not nearly habitable, but—”
He stopped himself from saying more, and in the low light from the windows she thought a ruddy flush touched his cheeks, as of embarrassment. She waited.
“It is the one thing I have been able to build here that is purely of my own design. No other architects with a hand in it, no specifications from the builder or buyer. Entirely my own.”
That warm flame burned within her chest, steadily, like a lamp that would never run low on fuel. “I would like to see it.” She raised her sword, advancing. “Your sisters will come live with you there?”
“Yes.” He put up his defense, and now his gaze was wary. “Why do you ask?”
“I am curious about your life. You are on good terms with your mother?”
“When she is pleased with me, yes. Are you on good terms with yours?”
“My mother is a saint. She will be canonized within her lifetime. St. Dovinia Emerald Van Der Welle Evans. They’ll dedicate a stained-glass window to her at St. Sefin’s.” She tried a new attack. He met it. “And your sisters? Are they older or younger?”
“All younger, each with a few years between them.”
“And they have always adored and looked up to you as their brave, fearless older brother.”
He laughed, but it was short and bitter. “My sisters have always lived in a world unto themselves, one I have little part in, with my mother at the center. They will be glad to have an elegant house of their own, and praise me for giving it to them, but that is all.”
“No companion?” she asked curiously. “A lover? A mistress?”
His brows came down in a hard slash, his mouth a match. “I am too busy with my work.”
“A pity. A waste, really.”
“Now why would you say something so foolish?”
He lunged toward her, and she parried. It was easier to retreat and slip away with her weight balanced as he’d taught her. She stepped to the side, making him turn to face her.
The growing light pressed against the window, a sliver of light showing above the shrubbery outside. The world was waking, warming, and the sunlight burnished his hair with gold streaks, made his cheekbones a high arch, his jaw sculpted stone. She wanted to place her hand there.
She wanted him to touch her again. Perhaps that was not wise, but she did not feel wise this morning.
“A man of your looks and many attractions? You must have many women vying for your attention. It seems a waste of your gifts not to bestow yourself on at least one of them.”