“Yes, I suppose so. In my opinion, everyone should learn to fight in this way.”
“Everyone?” Phoebe asked as she walked toward him. He proffered the sword toward her, encouraging her to take a look. She slowly took it from his fingers, trying to ignore the sensation created in her body when her fingers brushed his.
She held up the sword, watching as the sunrays through the window glinted across the side. Even for such a light-looking sword, it was surprisingly heavy in her grasp.
“It’s a sad fact of this world that not everyone is nice,” Hayward said, turning away as he placed his helmet in the rack nearby. “As much fun as Paris was, there were a few thieves in Montmartre that were after the money in my wallet.”
“Did they get it?” Phoebe asked, looking away from the sword and up to Hayward.
“Now, do you really need to ask me that?” he said, looking back to her with raised eyebrows.
“Proud indeed!” she accused him, watching as he smiled again.
“Maybe a little too proud at times, I’ll give you that,” he acknowledged with a nod. “What do you say?” he said, pointing at the sword.
“Say to what?” she asked, as she passed it between her hands. She could see how such a thing could give a man some power. Despite its slim shape, in the right situation, it could be the protection needed to survive.
“You could learn to use the weapon if you like?” Hayward’s words startled her so much that she fumbled with the sword and clattered it to the ground, jumping away from it, before looking up at him from the sword with a pretend look of innocence. “Lesson number one would be to not do that.”
“Me? Learn to fight?” she asked as she reached down to the floor and picked up the sword again. “I couldn’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“My husband would never allow it.”
“Have you not noticed yet that your husband is not here under this roof controlling you?” Hayward asked, looking around the room as though searching for him. “I would be very surprised to find him hiding here in one of my cupboards.”
She fought the smile his jesting tempted to pull from her.
“I…I have never even considered learning something likethis,” she said, proffering the weapon back to him. “No, I couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?” he asked, taking the weapon back.
“Because…” she trailed off, thinking of the last time she had discussed such a thing. It had been years ago, long before she had married Graham. It was when she had still been in her father’s household under his direction.
“Why would a woman need to fight?”That was what her father had said one day when she expressed interest in learning something like sword skills.“It might give them ideas above their station.”
“My father would never allow it either,” she said eventually, not lifting her gaze to Hayward’s again.
“How strange, because I don’t see him under this roof either controlling you.” Hayward’s words made her frown, just before he took two steps toward her, closing the distance between them and forcing her to look up to him. “The only one whose opinion on this that matters right now, is yours. Would you like to learn a few skills, my Lady?”
She chewed her lip in thought and looked down at the sword in his hand another time. It struck her that if she knew some skills, just a few things, perhaps she would be better at fighting off such an attack again from Graham in the future, if she had to go back to him.
Slowly, she lifted her hand and took the foil out of his grasp.
“Shall I take that as your answer?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said slowly.
“Excellent.” He smiled and stepped away, retrieving some padding and a helmet from the side of the room. “First, protection!”
A few minutes later, Phoebe was threaded into some padding placed over her dress and a helmet that was so cloying with heat she was certain her hair was sticking to her neck in damp tendrils. The mesh mask across her face made it more than a little difficult to see.
“How on earth are you supposed to fight like this?” she said with animation, trying to brush off the feeling of what is had been like to have Hayward tie up the padding around her back. It had brought the two of them close together indeed. So close that his breath tickled her ear and made he smile in a ridiculous way. “I can barely see what I am doing, let alone what you are doing.”
“It gets easier once you let your eyes adjust,” Hayward said, coming to stand in front of her. “Now, first, we’ll take a few positions, some different stances, then we will go through a practice parry.”
“What does that mean?”
