“It is not,” he replied, his jaw tightening. “But some of the students, including myself, are meeting there in a few minutes, and now you have spoiled what I had in store.”
Violet subsided against the seat, afraid that she would start to giggle and never stop if she looked either him or her aunt in the eye. But then it occurred to her that if the other pupils of the fencing school were to meet in the park, it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that the master of the academy might accompany them.
It wasn’t unreasonable at all to hope that she would see Kit again today, which meant that she would have an entirely different problem on her hands than a disgruntled fiancé and meddlesome aunt. She would have a full-blooded blackguard to contend with, an artful one, an amorous one. A person improper to know.
“I assume you have resold these sticks at a good profit,” Francesca said to Godfrey with a sniff of disapproval.
Godfrey watched as the sword retracted into the stick before he answered her. “We are staging a friendly bout by the lake today. You and your niece missed my performance, Lady Ashfield. I wanted to impress you.”
Violet sat in silence as he placed the cane back under the seat. So this was to be his treat. A fencing competition in the park—to honor her? Her throat grew tight. A surprise, indeed, but not what he’d had in mind. “How long have you been planning this, Godfrey?” she asked him quietly.
“For weeks,” he replied, releasing a sigh that hinted she was ungrateful for not guessing.
She could only be grateful he had not guessed the truth.
For weeks. Kit
would
be there.
She could not ask Godfrey to elaborate. It was enough for her to worry that by a look she or Kit would betray the other. It was enough for her to hide her emotions from her aunt. Should she worry that Kit would break his word? How was she supposed to watch him fight Godfrey and not take sides?
“I have always been intrigued by the notion of what gentlemen consider to be a friendly match,” her aunt mused in the uncomfortable silence that had fallen. “It seems to me that even in sport one can wound an opponent.”
“We are professionally trained,” Godfrey replied, glancing at Violet as if to implore her intervention. “We wear protective garments in the event of an accident, well-padded fencing jackets, gloves, and masks.”
“I understand that,” Francesca said. “But professional training does not erase every vestige of male pride. What if one of you should lose your temper? Anger can erupt even during a friendly challenge.”
“Master Fenton would not allow that, madam.”
Violet leaned forward, pretending a sudden fascination with the handsome team of horses that pulled another coach across the intersection. She was better off not entering into the conversation. Any opinion she ventured on the subject of Master Fenton was liable to arouse suspicion.
“I enjoyed a good sword fight in my day,” her aunt said, her face meditative. “It is a skill, I must admit, that rouses a certain passion in the blood.”
“Aunt Francesca,” Violet murmured with a smile, “I cannot believe you would admit that. If I were to confess such a thing in public, you would reprimand me to no end.”
“I think it’s clear that I have been overstrict in your upbringing.”
“I disagree,” Godfrey said, and there was no trace of confrontation in his tone. “Violet is a perfect example of how a gentlewoman should be raised. Her demeanor is a credit to you, madam.”
Violet gazed out into the street again. She and Godfrey did not know each other at all, she thought. He wanted an unflawed wife, one who would serve as a stage prop in his version of an unflawed world. The realization wilted her spirits. She pictured herself standing on a stage at a wedding altar, waiting until the very last moment for a swordsman with a chiseled face to rescue her. How many times in the past had Kit rescued her and Eldbert from Ambrose or another of their imaginary enemies? But Godfrey wasn’t her enemy. And he was real.
“I hope I never embarrass you, Godfrey,” she murmured.
“How could you?”
A dozen ways came to her mind.
The coach turned into the park, joining the stream of traffic that headed toward Rotten Row. Violet glanced past the elegant phaetons, the matched horses and liveried grooms. She saw a group of ladies with plumed hats, drifting across the grass.
“Where are they going?” Aunt Francesca asked, peering over Violet’s shoulder.
“I’ve no idea,” she said, but she did.
She’d spotted Kit standing in his shirtsleeves and close-fitting pantaloons as Sir Godfrey’s driver was parking behind a landau on the track. He turned, sending a detached glance in her direction. His gaze flickered once to Godfrey.
Her pulse fluttered wildly. To look at him no one would guess she and Kit had ever shared anything more than a dance and a charitable endeavor. She only hoped that she appeared as unmoved as he did.
She wasn’t unmoved inside. His handsome elegance had sent her heart racing. The sight of him warmed her blood.
A footman helped her aunt alight from the carriage, and Violet forced herself to follow at a demure pace instead of running across the park to a swordsman she’d never been able to resist.
Whatever she did, she would not draw undue attention to Kit.
“Who is that person, Violet?” her aunt demanded in the authoritative voice that even God would be afraid to ignore. “The tall man with the group of ladies and gentlemen gathered around him? The lithesome one who is putting on a jacket and mask.”
“I—”
“There is something familiar about him,” her aunt continued, her suspicious nature aroused. “I have the keenest feeling I have seen him somewhere. But surely I would remember a person of such favorable appearance if we had met.”
“That is my fencing master, madam,” Sir Godfrey said, with a pride that strangely touched Violet. “He is the man with whom Violet opened the benefit dance the night before last.”
Francesca hesitated, pulling away from Violet’s hand. “Yes,” she said slowly. “That must be it.” But there was enough uncertainty in her voice that she stole another glance at Kit from the corner of her eye. She looked as if she suspected there was more to his story. There was so much more, and Violet did not know most of it herself.
He
was
a sight to fluster the senses, a magnetic force caught between two worlds. Neither angel nor devil. A very human being who had suffered and proven his strength until now. Violet would not be the one to weaken him. She would be as faithful to their pact as he had been.
“Let us stand back in the shade,” she said absently to her aunt. “We can see well enough from here.”
“As you wish, Violet.”
No. Not as she wished. What she wished for was unspeakable and disallowed. She wished to walk beside him and share their thoughts. She wished to feel his arms around her, and his mouth covering hers in kisses that took her breath away. She wished to be his best friend, to be . . . his.
She guided her aunt into the shade. She forced herself to concentrate on Godfrey as he strode across the grass. It should not have been a chore to pay attention to the gentleman who would be her husband. It should not be a temptation to compare another man’s muscular shoulders and relaxed figure to her betrothed’s more solid and familiar form.
But was Godfrey really the more familiar? She straightened as Kit swept a button-tipped foil in the air. Violet could have sworn she heard it sing from where she stood. The careless ease of his swing brought back a rush of memories.
She was not the only one impressed by the nimble devil. Several ladies and gentlemen halted in midcon-versation to regard him in wonder. Even her aunt stepped forward, risking the sun for a closer look. To Violet’s astonishment Kit turned, looked straight at Aunt Francesca, and bent in a graceful bow.
“I think I like that young swordsman, Violet,” her aunt said. “But I am not deceived for a moment by that bow. It was meant for you.”
“He didn’t even look at me.”
“Exactly.”
“And he is wearing a mask.”
“All the better to hide his feelings for you,” Francesca said drily. “You must have stirred his romantic sentiments at the ball.”
“And you must have stirred sherry into your morning tea,” Violet said, shaking her head. “Furthermore, if he paid any attention to me, it would be as a courtesy to Godfrey. Let us discuss Godfrey, shall we? Doesn’t he look suave in his fencing jacket?”
“Not to me,” Francesca replied. “But then, dear, you are going to marry him, and it is encouraging that you regard him as your champion in this bout.” She paused. “I assume that Godfrey is challenging the master to duel. It
is
moving that he hopes to prove his manliness to you, Violet. Unless, of course, he is thoroughly thrashed, in which case he will prove only that he is a fool.”
“Aunt Francesca, I do not know why you are suddenly so disenchanted with Godfrey, but it is something that we will have to discuss in private.”
“I agree.”
Kit and Godfrey now stood only a yard apart, Kit demonstrating a few directions with his foil. In all likelihood Godfrey had paid Kit for this public show. Of course he had. But did she want to see Godfrey humiliated? She wasn’t sure she could watch even a congenial match between these two disparate men with an impartial heart. If she chose one as her champion, was she betraying the other? But to whom had she given herself first?
The bout started with the Grand Salute, a series of gestures by which the opponents showed respect for tradition. Violet noticed that the other pupils stopped their practice fencing by the water the instant that Kit and Godfrey engaged. The students drew together to study the master, as engrossed in Kit’s strategy as she was.
It was all about control. He underplayed his parries. He might have been fastening his cuffs. His calmness never wavered.
He was controlling everyone—his opponent, his audience, and most of all Violet. Yes, he was in complete control of her attention; Aunt Francesca had not breathed a word since the salute. Kit prolonged every move. He provoked. Godfrey responded, already striving to keep up the pace. Even to Violet’s amateur eye, it was obvious that Kit was manipulating Godfrey, and Godfrey, surprisingly, seemed to loosen and counter faster.
“Bash him, maestro!” a boy perched on his father’s shoulders shouted.
“Yes, do,” Aunt Francesca murmured.
Violet glared at her. “What did you say?”
“Achoo.”
Her aunt fumbled in her reticule for a clean handkerchief. “I must have sneezed. You know how grass irritates my breathing.”
Violet sighed. The duel immediately absorbed her again. Kit had learned technique, she realized. There were names for the movements of the match—Godfrey had thrust a carte, which Kit parried with the carte parade. But he had been born with that skill.
A forbidden memory rose to her mind—Ambrose chasing her through the churchyard, threatening to tie her to a tree if she didn’t join his army, and Kit flying after him. She was laughing, looking back as he gained on Ambrose. Her heart beat as if it would burst.
“I’ll cut off your head if you touch her!” Kit bellowed with a grin.
“And I’ll help him do it!” Eldbert shouted.
“Not fair,” Ambrose protested, bending to draw a breath. “You’re on my side today. I can’t fight Kit by myself. He knows too many tricks, and he runs like a fox. He isn’t civilized at all.”
Violet barely broke through the boundary of the yew trees before Kit caught up with her. “He’s right, you know,” she whispered, staring past Kit to the broken lych-gate at which Ambrose had apparently surrendered. “You have to let him win once in a while.”
“Why should I?”
“It’s the decent thing to do.”
“I . . . don’t care about being decent.”
“Then I won’t stay.”
“Fine.” Shadows gathered in his eyes. “I’ll let Little Lord Lost Pants win. On another day.”
But he never did.
At times he might allow Ambrose to think he had a chance. Violet and Eldbert would wait, certain of the outcome, which typically meant that Kit would slide into a backward lunge and toss Ambrose’s sword somewhere amid the broken tombs. Then Kit would clamber through the remnants of gargoyles and flying buttresses and rise up to declare that he had won the bout. And despite the pang of sympathy she felt for Ambrose, she would return home in a blissful mood for hours.
After leaving Monk’s Huntley she hadn’t felt that blissful since she had seen Kit again at the ball. She’d forgotten that she could feel that unadulterated abandon.
“Violet?”
“Hmmm?”
“Violet—why are you smiling like that?”
“What?” She shook herself, her aunt’s voice intruding on her daydream. “Why am I what?”
“You were smiling, dear.”
“Was I?”
“Yes. I suppose it is amusing.”
“What? The fencing match?”
“That man appears to be toying with Godfrey,” Aunt Francesca said with a keen air of discernment.
“Lower your tone.”
“No one can hear me over all the cheering and shouting. That young man is like a beast wearing out its prey before settling down to eat it.”
“I doubt that Master Fenton will be dining on Godfrey today. Besides, I think that Godfrey fences well.”
“To the uneducated eye. It isn’t that he fences like a schoolboy; it is that compared to his teacher . . . Oh, let us be honest: Few men could compare.”
Violet could not disagree.
From the nursemaids and students to the members of the nobility who had drifted together to watch, Violet’s aunt had merely voiced a collective observation.
“You must have enjoyed his performance at the benefit,” her aunt said after a reflective pause.
“I missed Godfrey’s scene.”
“I know.”
Aunt Francesca turned her head, meeting Violet’s eyes. She couldn’t possibly know about Kit, Violet thought. She couldn’t have realized the truth after all these years. Her aunt had seen him for only a few moments, if at all, from the door, the day Violet had fallen ill and he had carried her home.