A Duke of Her Own(16)

Even so, he almost missed the opening foray. The duke's blade slashed forward with such quick force that the boy expected blood to splatter the floor. The ballroom rang with the clear, high notes of clashing steel.

"Sharpen the angle of your arm, Your Grace!" Tobias had heard that kind of accent before. French, he thought. A Frenchman had hired him to hold his horse once, but afterwards he rode off without giving him a penny.

This particular Frenchman had a chiseled nose and an excitable look to his wide-set eyes. He wore no wig, and his short hair stood around his head like the needles of a pine tree. He was perspiring so heavily that Tobias could see the wet on his upper lip, even from the side of the room.

Tobias looked back at the duke. Villiers had raised his right elbow, but even so, the Frenchman seemed to be beating him back, step by step. Tobias slid quietly down the wall onto his heels. His heart was pounding, which was stupid, because he knew it was only practice. It looked violent, but that was nothing more than pretense.

"I would advise—" The Frenchman's voice broke off.

In one lightning quick motion, the duke slipped through his opponent's guard. His right arm was poised high in the air; his rapier just touched the Frenchman's throat.

The only sound to be heard in the ballroom was the panting of the two men.

Then the Frenchman fell back a step. "Your cavazi-one is still too easily countered." He sounded peevish. He turned to the large glass on one side of the ballroom and readjusted the hang of his waistcoat.

"Damn it, I'm covered in sweat!" Villiers complained. He put his sword down, hauled his shirt over his head and threw it to the side.

Tobias's eyes widened. The duke was all taut muscle in his middle, and above his waist those muscles widened to a broad chest. He had never seen anything akin to the duke's stomach. It was covered with ridges formed of muscle.

He couldn't help a glance at his own skinny limbs. He looked better than he had a month or two ago, remarkably well, considering he'd spent the last few years in a "highly undesirable situation," as Ashmole the butler had described it. Tobias didn't quite see how "undesirable" covered wading through sewers filled with muck, fishing for silver spoons and lost teeth, but he got the idea.

The men started circling each other again. He had never seen his father without a shirt before now.

In fact, he'd never seen him in less than formal attire, clothed from head to foot in silk or velvet adorned with fantastical embroidery.

Just this morning the duke had paid a visit to the nursery, and the children had all sat about, staring at his coat. It was made of red velvet with a pattern of small flowers, the whole of it covered with twining vines made from gilt thread with pearls sewn here and there.

Even one of those pearls could keep a family in meat pies for weeks. Months, maybe. He was getting used to Villiers's extravagant clothing, but his little sister, the one whom the duke had fetched a fortnight ago, and his brother Colin, who had arrived a mere week before, had been struck dumb.

Suddenly, Tobias realized that the duke was staring straight at him. He quickly came to his feet, back against the wall. The duke opened his mouth as if to say something, and then pivoted to parry a thrust from the Frenchman.

Tobias felt his heart beating in his throat again. Their swords clashed until his ears rang. Then the duke twisted his wrist sharply and his blade darted forward. His opponent's blade flew down and to the side, skidding to a halt a foot or two away.

The Frenchman broke into a string of incomprehensible curses, but the duke walked away as if nothing were being said. He plucked up a linen cloth from the bench and walked toward Tobias.

Tobias pulled his shoulders back. It was hard to imagine that someday he too might have a body like that, all gleaming muscle. Like that of a wild animal, really, he thought, remembering the body of his former employer. Grindel was flabby and soft, even though he had terrible strength in the swing of his arm. But Villiers was stronger.

"Your Grace," he said, barely inclining his head. The butler, Ashmole, had instructed him to bow whenever he met the duke, but he couldn't make himself do it. Bowing was for—for people who bowed. He had a strong feeling that if he started bowing to people, he might just find his head down all the time.

That was what life was like for bastards, he reckoned.

Villiers answered in that dusky voice that Tobias knew well enough was an older version of his own. "That was bloody hellish in the nursery this morning," he said, pulling the ribbon from his hair and rubbing his head all over with the linen cloth.

Tobias quelled an impulse to grin. You weren't supposed to smile around a duke. Ashmole had made that clear too.

"Are those children always so quiet?"