The Courtesan. Julia Justiss

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СКАЧАТЬ under his. In lieu of replying, he took a long draught of ale.

      “I tipped the hackney driver to wait,” Aubrey said after draining his mug. “Given your reputation for swordplay, the gallery should be crowded. We must depart immediately if we wish to secure chairs.”

      “I would rather stand at the side, where I can observe the lesson without it being obvious.”

      “Search out her weaknesses,” Aubrey agreed, “though not being a fencer of your rank, I’ve yet to note any. You’ll not want to miss even the smallest opening that could allow you to win the wager—and perhaps persuade her that further intimacy would be even more enjoyable, eh?”

      Jack laughed. “There’s little chance of that. I can’t meet her price, and I doubt my lovemaking skill is sufficient to impress a woman of Belle’s vast experience.”

      “Did those French and Spanish ladies not teach you a trick or two?”

      Jack shook his head. “Your vivid imagination again, Aubrey. Soldiers spend much more time slogging through dust, mud and rain to bed down on damp ground or in flea-infested hovels than romping with foreign beauties.”

      Aubrey picked up Jack’s uniform jacket. “Please, don’t shatter my boyhood illusions. Your coat, sir. If Belle should take a liking to you, promise you’ll not forget the part I had in bringing you together.”

      “I’m unlikely ever to forget,” Jack replied dryly as he fastened the jacket and buckled on his sword. He would not, he told himself as they proceeded to the waiting hackney, let his imagination play with the intoxicating notion of luring Belle into more than a simple kiss.

      She’s a wanton who would bed any man for a price, his righteous mind protested. But such a wanton! the part of his brain devoted to pleasure replied. Hadn’t she kept Bellingham’s desire aflame for years? His whole body tightened at the notion of the love tricks she must know…He dare not allow himself to imagine those smooth white hands, those plump pink lips performing their magic on him.

      Enough, he brought his thoughts up sternly. Let lust rule his head and, talented fencer that she was, she’d insure he didn’t win so much as one kiss.

      As they approached the hackney, Edmund Darnley walked up. “Thought I’d come lend my support.”

      “Come along,” Aubrey said. “But if Jack does succeed in winning Belle, he’s promised me the first introduction.”

      “Winning Belle?” Edmund echoed with a puzzled look.

      “Just Aubrey leaping to unsupported conclusions, as usual,” Jack replied. “There’s no question of anything but a kiss—which, I may add, I’ve yet to win.”

      “Then let us take our places so you have maximum time in which to determine how to do so,” Aubrey said.

      The three friends piled into the coach. A short time later, they entered the fencing room to find it, as Aubrey had predicted, already crowded. Jack nodded to Montclare and several others, while Rupert gave Jack a glacial glance as he passed to take up a place along the left wall.

      A short time later, master and pupil walked in. Belle, dressed again in breeches and shirt, her golden hair pulled tightly back, ignored the assembly, focusing instead on inspecting her sword and testing its balance.

      Releasing the breath he’d not realized he’d been holding, Jack wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or vexed that this time he hadn’t drawn to himself that compelling, focus-shattering gaze. Though she did not deign to look at him, he was acutely aware of her every movement.

      He mustn’t, he reminded himself, become distracted by the shapely derriere hugged by her doeskin breeches as she bent to adjust her foil or the arresting curves outlined beneath the shirt as she raised her arm, lest he be trounced as ignominiously as Wexley.

      And Lord help him, he wanted that kiss.

      That kiss and more.

      Alarmed by the insidious observation that sprang, as powerful as it was unwanted, from somewhere deep within him, Jack turned his attention to the fencing master.

      After a brisk review of stance and positioning, master and pupil assumed their places. During the lesson, Belle displayed the same quickness of foot and ingenuity of movement Jack had noted in her previous bout with Armaldi.

      She maneuvered the foil as if it were a natural extension of her arm, her hands light and quick, her stance well balanced and her intense concentration evident in the swift countering moves with which she met each of Armaldi’s advances. Though this time she did not disarm him, the match concluded with neither scoring a decisive advantage.

      “Buono, mia bella,” Armaldi said. “You fence again?”

      “Perhaps not,” Belle said. “I am a bit winded today.”

      Already stepping toward the fencing floor, Jack halted, surprised by the refusal. Quelling a ridiculously keen sense of disappointment, he had to compress his lips to keep from adding his objection to the shouts of protest.

      “But you must accept a challenge,” Ansley cried, dropping on one knee before her. “You gave your word!”

      “Besides, someone particular has pledged to meet you today.” Jack heard Aubrey’s voice and sighed. “A soldier and veteran of Waterloo. Surely you won’t deny this heroic defender of England a chance to win a victory far sweeter than the one he wrested from the brutal fields of battle?”

      Belle’s gaze swept the room and found Jack. For a long moment those intense blue eyes focused on his, sending a wave of shivers over his skin.

      “You,” she said at last.

      Jack bowed. “Captain Jack Carrington, ma’am, at your service. And perhaps later, if you are skillful enough, at your mercy.”

      Her lips twitched at that, but in the next moment a man from the gallery strode forward, stripped to his shirtsleeves and obviously intending his own challenge.

      As Jack watched the other man approach, the unexpected and disturbingly intense conviction seized him that the chance to fence with her, best her—kiss her—belonged to him and him alone. He had to squelch a strong, primal desire to draw his sword and repel any other contenders.

      The other man frowned at Jack. “’Tis not fair for Belle to be challenged by a military man, a professional!” he protested to Armaldi.

      “Do you imply ’tis impossible she could match him, Waterfield?” Aubrey shot back. “That’s presumptuous as well as ungentlemanly!”

      While Waterfield sputtered that he’d not meant to disparage Belle’s skill, Lord Rupert raised his voice above the clamor of disputing opinions. “Mr. Waterfield speaks the truth, Captain. You have, by your friend’s admission, fought recently and in deadly earnest. To challenge Lady Belle, who fences upon occasion and for sport, would be to take unfair advantage of the terms of Ansley’s wager. I must ask you to decline.”

      “You only wish him to step down because you fear he might actually win,” Aubrey inserted hotly.

      Rupert ignored him, his gaze fixed on Jack. “Lady Belle, unusual though she be, is still but a woman. Though she has achieved a remarkable СКАЧАТЬ