Guarded Heart

by Jennifer Blake

  He had almost succeeded. She had almost let her violent intentions toward him slip away. She had come close, so close to forgetting what he had done, in her concentration on how he made her feel.

  Yes, yes, she had thought of seduction in her turn, had used his apparent attraction to her for her own ends. Maybe this was no less than she deserved, as Sasha had said. No matter, it still hurt. It hurt more than she had dreamed possible.

  How very strange that was when she felt nothing for the English sword master beyond the ardor he had so carefully awakened inside her and, perhaps, some small gratitude for revealing to her the sensual union possible between a man and a woman. He was an attractive man and she appreciated his intelligence, but that was all.

  Surely that was all.

  She could not be in love with him. She refused to consider it. She despised him, and with excellent reason. He had killed Francis, plunged his sword into his chest and stopped his heart. And he had come close to taking her heart as well, along with her body and her claim to the chaste faithfulness of a widow who had known duty and affection but never passion.

  She would have retribution. This terrible anguish that took her breath, squeezed her heart and blinded her with acid tears demanded it. She would kill him for what he had done. If that did not ease the pain of his treachery, it would at least restore her self-respect.

  Oh, but could she do it? Could she really kill him?

  If he stood before her at this moment, she was certain of it. Her rage and pain went that deep. About later, she could not be so certain. Still, something must be done.

  What was it he had said on the night they met, something about a woman's revenge? She stood frowning down the Cabildo's long shadowed arcade with its dark slate paving marred by patches of mud as she considered it. Then she had it. A woman's reprisal, so he had claimed, was more subtle than a man's but more devastating because of that subtlety. Yes, that was it.

  She had scorned the idea at the time, but what of now?

  What if he was right after all?

  Twenty-Four

  Ariadne stood at the French door of her bedchamber listening to the rain that fell in the dark street below, the endless winter rain. It seemed like a minor refrain running through the days since the New Year, since she had met Gavin Blackford. It reflected her somber mood, she thought, echoed the gray desolation of her expectations.

  She was waiting. Her plans had been made, everything was in readiness. She was not quite sure what would take place, knew only that this farce between her and the sword master would soon be over. It felt odd, not quite real, that it should be so. She moved, breathed, gave orders, bathed and dressed, yet it seemed that she stood outside herself, watching as if she were someone else entirely.

  Something deep inside her warned against what she was about to do. She refused to heed it. She had lived with this need for revenge, this determination to have it for so long that it was a part of her. What would she put in its place if she let it go? How would she fill the emptiness?

  A carriage rattled past in the street below, its top shiny with wet, its side lantern casting a moving glow on the lower wall of the house across the street. The driver huddled on the seat, a miserable figure under a limp-brimmed hat that dribbled water down his back. As it passed along, she saw a kitten in a window across the way, with a candlelit room behind it. The small gray tabby mewled plaintively as he watched a sleepy pigeon on the windowsill before him. The faint sound mingled with the music of a piano-forte as some virtuoso further down the street practiced a Mozart concerto.

  It was easy to see out because only a single candle burned in the room behind her. That was not only highly convenient, but by strict design.

  Light spilled from the windows of Maurelle's salon further along the street-side balcony, laying geometric designs on the canvas-covered floor and showing the rain that spattered in its collected puddles. Her hostess was busy there, Ariadne thought; Maurelle had mentioned having letters to write. No guests were with her on this dreary evening unless it was Gavin and, perhaps, Nathaniel. Ariadne didn't actually know where the sword master was at the moment. He could be reading or playing cards as easily as visiting with his hostess. She only knew it had been arranged that he would come to her at this time. And so she waited.

  One moment she was alone, the next he was there. It was the draft from the door as it opened from the inner gallery, stirring her robe, dipping the candle, that warned her. She turned to see him with one hand on the doorknob, the gray light turning his hair to the hue of tarnished gold coins, leaving only a vague impression of his frock coat and cravat, pressed pantaloons and polished boots.

  He had dressed for her. The knowledge threatened to close her throat before she lifted her chin, breathing deep.

  His gaze was dark blue with appraisal as he scanned her rather elegant robe à la Franqaise with its lightweight silk fullness and her dark hair that flowed over her shoulders and down her back. It paused on the fine batiste folds of her white nightgown, edged with black lace like a mourning handkerchief at neckline and ankle-length hem, that peeped through the robe's open front. "A casual affair, I perceive," he said, his voice deeply musical. "I would have complied most happily, but your invitation did not specify."

  "An oversight. It doesn't matter. Please come in."

  The rings holding the draperies of gold-fringed bronze silk rattled as she turned to pull them over the window, shutting out the dusk. Releasing them, she moved to stand in front of the fire that burned in the grate. The warmth felt good on her back, though that was not her purpose. The firelight, she was well aware, faithfully outlined her form through her thin night clothes. She knew because she had already checked the effect in the cheval mirror which sat in the corner next to the bed.

  Gavin noticed, of that there was little doubt. Closing the door, he came forward, his tread light and wariness in his eyes.

  At least his attention was upon her.

  She feared he might take her in his arms, given the warm nature of their last meeting, last parting. That was a risk she preferred to avoid. Stepping to one side, she sank onto the seat of one of the pair of armchairs before the fire and indicated that he should take the other.

  Eyes narrowed a little, he dropped soundlessly to the cushioned surface with the control allowed by smoothly flexing muscles. "Not a night of tender fornication, then, or even an hour? I shall survive the disappointment, but pray to know the reason. Or have we come, finally, to a reckoning for past favors?"

  "Past injuries, rather."

  "That does sound ominous."

  "It should." Leaning so the cascading swath of her hair hid her movements, she picked up the rapier which lay on the far side of her low chair. It whistled softly as she whipped it around and leveled the shining point straight at his heart.

  He did not so much as glance at it but kept his gaze on her face even as he brought both hands up and away from his body. "Poetic justice, as it were," he said in soft recognition. "Press home, chère, if that is your dearest wish. I could have stopped you long before now had it been mine."

  "So I've discovered. Why did you let it go on? Unless it was for the—how did you style it? Tender fornication?"

  "A delectable prize, admittedly, even spiced with hatred, flavored with intrigue. How was I to resist? But no, that was not the purpose. It seemed you were due recompense. Not perhaps, in the form of my skull to wear on a ribbon against your breast, sublime a resting place though it might be, but in some degree. The trick was to allow it without causing a matching remorse."

  "You thought I would regret injuring you." She rose to her feet, made a brief, lifting motion with her rapier to show that she intended he should stand as well.

  He complied, all languid grace, following as she backed away from the confined area near the chairs toward a clearer space at the foot of the bed. "Hope, they do say, springs eternal." His smile was wry at the edges. "I was optimistic enough to think you might change your mind."

/>   She almost had for a short while, she thought as she faced him. That was a moment of weakness it was best that he should never know. "Or arrogant enough."

  "I believe I also explained the travails of repentance to you," he went on as if her insult touched him not at all. "It seemed as well if you were not required to share that burden."

  "Share?"

  "To cause a death, any death, lies heavy on the conscience of a feeling person. Your foster brother's weighs on mine. I trust mine would weigh on yours. Not, I do realize, as a personal loss but in the way the final moment of even the lowest creature touches us, as a harbinger of our own."

  "You killed him." The words fell from her lips in stark accusation. She had meant to be less obvious, but the thought had been too long in her mind for anything less than plain speaking. Without removing her gaze from his, she reached behind the bed's footboard, retrieved the rapier secreted there earlier, mate to the one she held, and sent it spinning toward him.

  Gavin caught the glittering blade by its hilt, gazed down at it for a long, considering instant. Sweeping it up in a salute then, he inclined his head. "Let us give him his proper name, your foster brother. Francis, it was, Francis Dorelle. He was so young." He paused, his lashes shielding his gaze. "I suppose Maurelle told you how it came about."

  "She did of course." Ariadne shrugged from her robe, leaving only the gathered fullness of her nightgown that fell from its high yoke edged in black lace. It gave her more freedom of movement. If it proved a distraction to her opponent, that was all to the good.

  His gaze not quite focused, his pupils wide in the dark, Gavin removed his frock coat and tossed it aside. "Maurelle was not there when the challenge was issued so can have only a second hand account of it. Shall I tell you how it happened?"

  She wanted to deny him that right, wasn't sure she could bear to hear. But to refuse might mean that she would never know the exact nature of that tragic duel. Assuming the en garde position, holding her blade steady so he might cross it with his own, she said, "It was over a poem, I believe."

  "Not just a poem but the fact that it was dedicated to a lady who was—well, let us say her affections were directed elsewhere." In answer to Ariadne's signal, following her initiating beat, he met her blade, tapping against it with no intent to overpower, nothing more than the force required to turn it aside in the barest of engagements. "This was Madame Lisette, now married to Caid O'Neill," he went on conversationally. "She was, and is, special to those who fight for a living in the Passage de la Bourse because she makes for us a home of sorts, a circle where we are always welcome. But that is beside the point. Francis had written her another of his poems and meant to declaim it in the moonlight below her window. Unfortunately, he had taken several glasses of brandy to gain courage for this literary serenade."

  "You are saying he was drunk. He never drank." Angry at that claim which must be a lie, she swirled into a sudden attack with solid purpose behind it. Her rapier slid, abruptly, past his guard and caught his left shirt sleeve, passing through it with a harsh whisper of tearing cloth. A thin line of red appeared on the pristine white fabric.

  Shock drove her back in haste, also the fear of some dreadful reprisal. It did not come. Instead, he stepped out of the guard position, transferred his weapon to his left hand and touched the splayed fingers of his right to the slit, glanced at the blood.

  "Satisfied, madame?"

  She was stunned at the ease of that touch; never had she expected it. She had thought to wear away at his stamina that had been weakened by his injury, or perhaps achieve some small victory by dint of feminine trickery, but that was all. Sickness rose inside her as she eyed the red stain. Beneath it ran a thread of suspicion, however, one made more certain by the set look on his face. More than that, she was close to learning, finally, the details of a meeting that had baffled her for long years but never more so than in the past few days.

  She met his gaze with steel in her eyes. "No, monsieur."

  "As it pleases you." Face impassive, he gripped his sword in his right hand again.

  "En garde," she said, sinking into her swordsman's crouch that fluttered her hem around her ankles. When he assumed his own guard position in grim-faced compliance, she tapped his blade with a musical clink. "Now. You were saying?"

  They had done this so often, the beating back and forth, gently, experimentally, that it almost seemed natural. Certainly, it was inconceivable that there should be danger in it. That it could, she was almost certain now, was true for only one of them. And it was not her.

  "You say he did not drink," Gavin went on after a second. "Doubtless you are right. If he had been more in the habit, he might have held his liquor better or been more wary of the consequences. As it was, he objected to being interrupted in his intentions. I thought I was protecting the lady's peace and good name in the absence of my friend Caid by ordering him off. I could have been more tactful."

  "He refused to go so you challenged him."

  "He refused to go, I made sundry scathing remarks concerning his efforts with a pen, and he challenged me."

  "But that was..."

  "Madness on his part, yes. He knew it, but pride prevented him from backing down. I could not refuse his cartel without further damage to his twice-damned, abominably sensitive amour-propre, and so—"

  The acid self-condemnation in his voice raked across her nerves leaving them raw. "So you met him. Rather than damage his poor pride even further by forcing him to live with defeat, you killed him."

  "Yes, if you like." The words were stark, unforgiving.

  Ariadne did not like it. Temper drove her forward again. He parried, whirled into a riposte, hesitated. This time, she caught the moment when he broke his timing, deliberately faltered to allow her blade to slip past his own. A rent appeared in the linen gathers at the top of his shoulder. Another red stain appeared on his shirt.

  Rage shook her. It was rank condescension for him to allow her to injure him without standing and fighting as if she were a worthy opponent. She would not have it. As he stepped out of position, she did not wait for him to ask if she was satisfied. Voice stark, she said simply, "No."

  He appraised her, his face implacable before he gave a single hard nod.

  Once more, they approached each other. This time she was more cautious, reining in her temper, watching his every move. Regardless of how much she wanted to slash and hack at him, she would not attack with force. They traded forays, parrying in seconde, in quarte, in sixte, the ripostes crisp, every counter precisely timed, perfectly executed.

  It was exhilarating. Beyond her purpose and the outcome she envisioned was an odd pleasure in facing off against Gavin Blackford. She had worked hard to come to the point where she could hold her own with him, at least as long as he was not in deadly earnest. Regret brushed her that it must all end here, the lessons, her quarrel with him, their clash of tempers and tempered steel.

  He was frowning, she saw, and was almost certain it was not entirely in concentration. She must act soon, she was sure of it; he was far from dense, could read her much too well. Choosing her moment with care, she skipped forward in a sudden attack, met his parry, then hesitated in her turn, allowing her guard to grow slack just as she was driven back by a particularly fast and economical riposte. His blade was a flash of silver, a blur as it came toward her, slid into the batiste of her nightgown, barely missed her left hip.

  His virulent oath singed the air. "God's teeth, woman, what do you think you're doing? I might have gutted you."

  It was true in its way; he might have done real damage had he been slower in his responses, less agile in the turn of his wrist. "What? You object to being allowed a touch? It seemed only fair given those you allowed me."

  "You think I'm humoring you."

  "I know it."

  "Protect yourself then, ma belle."

  It was what she wanted, wasn't it? She should have been happy. Instead, she shivered inside with a sudden chill that did not
blend well with her frantic excitement. His eyes had an icy gleam behind their gold-tipped lashes; his mouth was set in lines of forbidding sternness. Whatever his game had been, he played no longer.

  They came together with the clash of steel against steel; it clicked and clanged, slid and scraped while fiery sparks dripped down like rain. Within moments, Ariadne's brow was damp with perspiration and she could feel a slow trickle between her breasts. Her wrist was numb from the jarring power of his strokes communicated through her steel and the muscles in her arm tingled, beginning to burn. She breathed in quick gasps, grunting with effort, and she didn't care. This was a true duel and she gloried in it. He was holding nothing back and it was a thing of magic and miracle that she could meet his steel, return his attacks, execute a sudden, wrenching move or two that made him step back and square his shoulders before he began again.

  The pace was measured yet incredibly fast. There was little time to think or prepare. It was war with no quarter, a battle of nerves and will and stringent, unwavering intention. She made a riposte that opened his eyes, then she was driven back, breathlessly defending. Seconds later, she heard fabric tear, felt cool air around her shins. Instantly, he retreated, stood waiting, ready for what she would do next.

  Ariadne looked down at her feet in their soft slippers. She could see them because the hem of her nightgown with its frill of black lace had been cut away at her knees as cleanly as if with a dressmaker's scissors.

  Was the desecration in retaliation or warning, or was it, just possibly, an attempt to make certain she did not trip on her hem this time? She could not tell, though she looked up, staring at her opponent for long seconds. His eyes were empty of all emotion there in the gloom lit only by firelight and a single candle. It was as if he had retreated from her, from the bedchamber and what he was doing in it, from what might be required of him here in its feminine confines.

  Was this the way he looked on the dueling field when he faced another duelist? Did he retreat inside himself so he might not be touched by what he was forced to do?