Guarded Heart by Jennifer Blake Page B

influenced by flagrant masculinity, however. She preferred men with tender and gentle manners who appreciated music and poetry and the more graceful aspects of life. Sweaty power and the ability to kill did not make her heart beat faster. No, not at all.
    â€œGiving Sasha his congé could be premature,” she said after a moment.
    â€œYou feel your Russian may be some protection against Monsieur Blackford’s interest? As much as I dislike causing you worry, I assure you Sasha will be of little use should the Englishman decide to pursue you. He holds few things sacred, recognizes fewer barriers to his desires or even his caprices. On the other hand, I cannot imagine him making a fool of himself over a woman who holds him in disregard. He has too much pride for it.”
    â€œOr too much arrogance?”
    â€œOh, I’ll grant that he holds himself as high as any swordsman in the city, but he allows little to touch him personally.”
    Ariadne gave her a direct look. “You seem to know him well.”
    â€œHe has been in and out of this town house along with the other sword masters and their wives I’ve spoken of so often, Nicholas Pasquale and his Juliette, Caid O’Neill and his wife Lisette, the Conde de Lérida and his condessa, Celina. Yes, and the American, Kerr Wallace, as well—it was Monsieur Blackford who introduced him to me and they are often together as neither has a household beyond the rooms above their ateliers.” Maurelle lifted a plump shoulder. “Still, he is a most private man. I’d not presume to say I know him.”
    â€œBy his choice, I’d imagine.”
    Her friend’s expression turned pensive and she set down her chocolate cup before turning back to Ariadne. “About these lessons between you, there is something I must know. Can you really have said you intend to use any skill you gain for revenge? If I’d thought for an instant you had any such idea, I would never have presented Monsieur Blackford. Tell me, I beg, that he misunderstood what you said to him.”
    To lie went against the grain, yet it was impossible to admit Maurelle into her confidence. She of all people would understand at once who the target must be and would surely move to stop her. Ariadne tried to look mystified. “He must have, mustn’t he?”
    Maurelle gave her a long look, but was prevented from further questions by a commotion on the gallery outside the salon door. An instant later, Solon bowed a lady into the room.
    â€œMadame Savoie,” he announced.
    The new arrival was a monumental female made more so by the generous width and carpet-brushing length of her lavender velvet cloak. A large hat of purple felt with an upturned brim and a lavender-dyed feather swirling around the crown topped her head, and her hair beneath the confection was drawn back in a severe style like a helmet of polished copper. Clinging to her shoulder was a green-and-yellow parrot that leaned forward, bobbing up and down and whistling with piercing effect. As she cast her outerwear into Solon’s waiting arms, she was seen to be clad in purple satin with a laced, Elizabethan bodice that barely confined her magnificent bosom. Drawing attention to it was a necklace of amethysts and diamonds of a size that should have cried paste but looked amazingly real. Her nose was commanding, the cast of her chin and cheekbones from a heroic mold, and her voice as she spoke had such resonance that it rattled the china ornaments on the marble fireplace mantel and roused echoes in the salon’s high, plastered ceiling.
    â€œChocolate, chère Maurelle, for the love of God,” she pleaded. “I smell chocolate and must have it this instant. My landlady is a paragon among women but has only coffee and I am like to die of craving the sweet elixir of life, that nectar of the goddess. Oh, please, let me have chocolate!”
    â€œAt once,” Maurelle said, rising and