The Complete Regency Bestsellers And One Winters Collection. Rebecca Winters

intellectual discussions. When I’m not at Leodegrance’s, Archer and I sit for hours in the Latin Quarter, listening to the debates, joining in sometimes.’

      ‘Surely you have that in London?’ She shot him a sideways glance.

      ‘I suppose we do. Soho is awash with artists and foreigners bringing their own flavour to the city, but it’s not a place I am able to frequent often.’ Wistfulness passed over his features and was quickly gone, but not missed. ‘Perhaps it’s not the city I love so much as the freedom I have in it. No one has expectations of me here.’

      She gave a soft laugh of understanding. ‘Le Vicomte Amersham has to keep up appearances?’ There were places she no longer frequented, too, because life required otherwise. She thought about his comment regarding escape. Paris was about freedom for him. She’d been surprised a man of his background didn’t already consider himself free, that he found it necessary to leave his home to taste freedom. She’d always thought money and power were the keys to freedom, and he seemed to have plenty of them. She and her brother had struggled to keep what little they had of either.

      ‘Where does fencing fit with all of that?’ She risked probing a little further.

      ‘Fencing is a gentleman’s art. A man should how to defend himself adequately.’ It was a rote answer, the kind fencing instructors gave to build their student base.

      ‘You’ve attained enough skill to have stopped ages ago.’ She wouldn’t let him get off with an easy answer.

      He stopped walking and faced her, eyes serious. ‘If you want to know, it’s about freedom, the chance to prove myself on my terms and no one else’s. Skill cannot be inherited, it has to be worked for, it has to be honed to perfection and that is something only a man can do for himself.’

      ‘I know.’ Her answer was a whisper. She did know. Better than he thought because that was how she felt every time she picked up a foil, every time she faced an opponent on the piste. How would she be able to keep her emotional detachment when he looked at her like that? Spoke to her in words that echoed in her heart? She swallowed in the silence. ‘Come, the fountain I want you to see is just up here.’ The layers were coming off. But his layers weren’t the only ones being peeled back. She’d not bargained on the fact that exposing him would also mean exposing herself.

      * * *

      It was quiet beneath the shade of the leafy canopy overhead, the sound of trickling water growing louder as they approached the end of the path. ‘This is the Medici Fountain, one of the prizes of our park.’ Her voice was quiet out of reverence for the solitude.

      ‘It’s beautiful.’ Haviland spared a glance at the stonework, but his gaze rested on her and she had no doubt his words hadn’t been for the fountain alone. ‘Is this what you wanted to show me?’ His eyes dropped to her mouth, silently encouraging.

      ‘And I wanted to show you this.’ She stretched up on her toes, arms wrapping around his neck as she brought her mouth to his. This time there would be no mistake about who was kissing whom and who had started it.

       Chapter Eight

      It was both easier and more difficult to fence Haviland on Thursday, two days later. Alyssandra had not bargained on this. She would have thought the sensation of kissing him would have waned by now. And, most certainly, fencing him should have been easier. After all, this time she knew what to look for in his attacks from the experience of having opposed him before; knew how he’d hold his body, how he’d move, how fast he’d be. But the distraction of him, of knowing that body and how it felt pressed to hers, was mentally overwhelming. No wonder Eve was not to have eaten from the tree of knowledge.

      It took all her concentration to think about flèches instead of kisses while knowing full well he did not share the distraction. How could he? He thought he was facing her brother. He had no idea she was behind the mask. Yet, she sensed he carried his own distraction, too. The timing of his movements was off and he was dropping his shoulder more than usual.

      Even so, it took her longer than she’d planned to defeat him. With a rather large sense of relief, her button pierced his shoulder in the same place. She put up her foil, nodding to Julian, and turned to make a quick departure as she had on Tuesday. Today, Haviland was ready for such an exit.

      ‘Wait, aren’t you going to explain to me how you do that?’ he called before she reached the door. ‘That’s twice now, Leodegrance. There must be something you look for.’ She did not turn. She kept moving. She could see in her mind the scene playing out behind her: Haviland stepping forward instinctively, wanting to follow her out, and Julian stepping between them. She could hear Julian as she slipped into the hallway.

      ‘Monsieur, you were distracted today. Your movements were like an amateur’s. Mon Dieu!’ Julian picked up the instruction with a rapid cataloguing of Haviland’s mistakes.

      It was not unlike the discussion awaiting her in the viewing room. She had barely taken off the mask and tugged her hair out of its tight bun before Antoine voiced his disapproval. ‘You weren’t concentrating!’ He turned his chair from the peepholes with a fierce turn, his features grim. ‘If this is what one kiss has done, it is too dangerous! He nearly had you today.’

      Alyssandra shrugged, trying to give a show of nonchalance. It wasn’t what one kiss had done, it was what one moonlit garden, one afternoon stroll, a rather charged flirtation up against an oak tree and another kiss at a fountain had done. ‘If he had, we would have told him it was planned, part of the lesson to work on something or other.’

      ‘That’s not good enough,’ Antoine snapped. ‘You are supposed to be me. My reputation is on the line when you fence like that.’

      It was true. Antoine would never have been distracted by thoughts of hot kisses or by anything for that matter. One of his many skills in fencing was his single-minded focus. Once, during a championship match, a fire had started outside but Antoine had been oblivious to all of it—people screaming, the fire brigade throwing water—until he’d defeated his opponent. It had become part of the legend surrounding him. She would never have that level of concentration. Privately, she wasn’t sure it was a great loss. She’d rather see a fire coming.

      She gave her brother a patient smile. ‘Everything ended as we wanted. Shall I tell Julian to instruct him on his dropped shoulder tomorrow?’ It would pacify Haviland and keep him from charging out of the room demanding answers from an opponent who wouldn’t speak to him.

      Antoine nodded, calming down. ‘I’ll tell Julian myself. We need to meet afterwards anyway.’ He paused. ‘I think I must apologise. It was wrong of me to ask you to stay close to the vicomte. I never meant for you to jeopardise your virtue. I thought you would be safe with him. I should have known better. I’ve seen enough of them come through the salle on their Grand Tours. They’re all looking for the same thing. Your charming vicomte isn’t any different, much to my regret.’

      But he was different. He talked of freedom. He had offered escape, not a bawdy roll in the sheets. But how did she articulate those things in terms that wouldn’t worry Antoine? ‘I’ll manage him. I’m not fool enough to lose my head over a kiss,’ Alyssandra said tightly. ‘I think I will change and go home now. I have a few errands to run on the way.’

      Alyssandra changed quickly in her brother’s office, her movements fast and jerky as she pulled off her trousers and slid into half-boots and a walking dress, mirroring the rapid, angry thoughts rushing through her mind. She wasn’t mad at Antoine. She was mad at herself. He was right. Today’s lesson had teetered on the brink of disaster. She’d nearly been too distracted and a second’s distraction was all it would have taken. At the first opportunity, she’d failed to maintain the professional objectivity she’d promised herself.

      He was right, too, about the uselessness of encouraging Haviland’s interest in her. Nothing good could come of it outside of preserving their secrets. She had