NOTORIOUS in the Tudor Court: A Sinful Alliance / A Notorious Woman. Amanda McCabe

guard, monsieur.”

      Nicolai’s smile widened, and he took up his own stance. At first they circled each other warily, blades poised, trying to gauge weaknesses, techniques, strengths. Marguerite’s senses shimmered with tense awareness; it was as if time slowed around her, and she was attuned to every tiny flicker of his muscles. Every shift and movement and breath of his body.

      There was a small noise outside their hidden room, the distant fall of a hammer. Nicolai did not turn, but she saw his eyes widen slightly and she took the perceived advantage. She moved in with a lunge and a low, straight thrust.

      But he was not distracted. His blade came up in a smooth stop-thrust. Marguerite fell back, bringing her sword up to attack again.

      She heard the echo of Signor Lunelli’s voice in her head. Remember, signorina, your male opponents will have two advantages over you—reach and strength. But you, you have speed and agility. Use them! And never lose your calm centre. That is fatal.

      She rose up on the balls of her feet as if dancing, her blade flashing in delicate, swift feints, faking her line of attack. Speed and agility—he would think she was one place, as she delivered quick, small blows until she moved into compound attack.

      Yet Nicolai did not fight as she expected. He parried her blows, his blade shifting as hers did, almost imperceptibly. He had a lean, easy strength she could not match, and that infuriating half-smile never left his lips.

      Marguerite felt her calm centre, so essential to Signor Lunelli’s instructions, melt away under a hot flare of anger. She rushed in close to his strong side, wrapping her weaker arm about his sword arm and twirling her body around to slide her blade into place. She had to do it quickly, before he realised her impulsive plan and dropped his sword to grapple with her. Then all her agility could never stand up to that strength.

      The tip of her blunted blade just touched him when he did drop his sword, his fingers closing tightly over her wrist, like an iron vise.

      “Chert poberi!” he growled. “You do fight dirty.”

      “Oui. But I always win.”

      “Almost always.”

      His grip tightened on her wrist, not painful but numbing, until the blade fell from her nerveless grasp to clatter on to the floor. Marguerite cursed herself for forgetting all her training, for getting too close to him, allowing him to gain the advantage. That speed and agility had availed her naught in the end, it was too bound up in that boiling anger.

      He didn’t let go of her wrist, and she stared up at him, her breath quick. His breath, too, was hard and uneven, his pulse thrumming through his veins and into hers, their heartbeats mingling. She still stared up at him into the glow of his eyes. His face was expressionless, yet she saw the faint flush of his cheeks, beneath the sun-bronzed colour of his Italian life. A muscle ticked along his jaw. So, he was not unaffected by their nearness, by whatever this was that flowed between them so inexorably.

      Marguerite stretched up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, unable to resist for an instant longer. She had to taste him, feel him. Maybe then she could decipher this mysterious force that turned her cold, careful life tip over tail. Exorcise his spell. But she made another mistake, for his kiss only bound her tighter in the silken noose of anger, lust and painful need.

      His lips opened beneath hers, and he let go of her wrist, freeing her to wrap his arms around her, to draw her closer and closer. If she was to be his prisoner, he would be hers, too, the two of them bound together as they tumbled down into the abyss. He groaned, a low, hoarse sound she felt deep inside of her. Their tongues met and clashed as their swords had, a humid blur that erased everything else. There was only Nicolai, the dark taste of him, the heavy press of his hard arousal against her skirts.

      Not breaking their kiss, Marguerite snatched at his clothes, tearing the fastenings of his doublet, the thin linen of his shirt until her touch met naked, smooth, hot skin.

      Nicolai dragged his lips from hers, pressing a kiss to her temple, her cheek. “Marguerite,” he groaned. “Dorogaya. What are we doing?”

      “I don’t know,” she whispered, her fingers playing lightly over his bare chest, the uneven pounding of his heart. She traced a circle over the flat disc of his nipple, and felt his breath suck in. “I tried to fight it, deny it. But you have some strange spell, you beautiful demon, some magic…”

      He gave a harsh laugh, and took her hand to drag it down over his hard penis, sheathed in the rough cloth of his hose. “Is this magic?”

      She laughed, too, running her touch over his throbbing erection, feeling it strain for her caress. “Do you not think so?”

      “You are the one with the spell, vedma!”

      “What does that word mean?”

      “It means you are a witch. A sorceress, come from the dark fairy realms to torment us poor mortals. You tried to kill me once in the midst of passion.”

      Marguerite swallowed hard, remembering Venice, her dagger arcing toward that heartbeat. The thought of his lifeblood spilling out, of the warm flesh she now caressed turning ice-cold, made her shiver.

      She stepped back from him, reaching up to unlace her sleeves and draw them off, dropping them at her feet in a black velvet puddle. “I have no hidden daggers today,” she said, loosening the thin sleeves of her chemise. “Not there—not here.”

      She clasped the hem of her overskirt and petticoat, drawing the heavy fabric up, up, until his narrowed gaze could take in the length of her legs, clad in silk stockings and jewelled garters. She drew it up farther until he could see the shadow of her womanhood, damp with desire.

      Still holding her skirts with one hand, she reached up with the other to free her hair from its gilded veil, shaking the silvery length free over her shoulders.

      “I will not try to kill you this day, Nicolai,” she said. “I give you my word. Now, will you kiss me again?”

      In answer, Nicolai gave a low growl, and lunged forward to catch her around her waist. As their lips met again, he lifted her high, twirling her around to press her up against the wall. Marguerite wrapped her legs tightly about his hips, drawing him into the curve of her body. His hose abraded the soft skin of her thighs, but she didn’t care or even notice. She just wanted him closer, closer.

      He trailed a ribbon of kisses to her throat, biting and licking at the curve where her neck met her shoulder, the hollow where her pulse pounded. She let her head fall back against the wall, offering him all she had, all she was.

      He tugged her low-cut French bodice down to bare her breasts. Her nipples strained for his kiss, aching.

      “You are so beautiful,” he murmured. “So very beautiful.”

      She had heard those words so often, but never, not until this moment, had she believed them to be true. Perhaps she was beautiful—in his eyes.

      He could not see her black-spotted soul. “Not as lovely as you, mon ange,” she whispered.

      He captured her nipple between his lips, rolling it, biting gently, teasingly, before he at last gave her what she craved, longed for, and drew it deep into his mouth.

      Marguerite found she could stand the intense need, the fire, no longer. She pushed him back until her breast was free of his kiss, until she could touch her feet to the earth. Then she clasped him by the shoulders, moving his unresisting body to the floor.

      He watched her closely in the dim light as she straddled him, reaching out with desperate hands to strip him of his doublet and shirt, to tug at the lacings of his hose.

      “Marguerite…” he said roughly.

      “Non!” she answered. “Don’t say anything, Nicolai, not now.” Words would just break the witch’s spell, and she did not want to awaken. Not yet.

      He lay back, his hair pooling around him